Orange Lilies
by storiewriter
Summary: Torako's in her last year of Grad School, doing a senior practical Internship. Bentley is working as a lab researcher for runic advancements. Dipper is trying to reconnect with reincarnations of other souls in the wake of Philip's death. Things are...working. And then everything goes wrong. (Transcendence AU, Bentley Arc)
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Because this is exactly what I need to be doing. No, not printing. Nah, not figuring out what I'm writing for my next fiction writing class story. Nope, not applying for JET. Or any other things. This. This is it.

The summary is a working one, and "Orange Lilies" is a working title. This comes after "Xonge" and "Silver Morning."

* * *

The study was large and well-lit by two giant windows, whose thin, magically reinforced-glass somehow seemed to let in more sunlight than they should be capable of. In front of the shorter window at the head of the room sat an off-white desk, which hummed low as it hovered a few feet off the floor. Along its underside was a dim blue glow, and on its front were several buttons and sliders. On it were a few old physical books, stacked carefully, a pair of archivist gloves laid on top of them. A blank journal sat next to the stack, closed, a ballpoint pen marking the writer's progress close to the leather back. Behind both of them was a clear crystal vase filled with orange lilies, placed there by the owner's housekeeper on request.

Perpendicular to the desk was a long couch, a sharp red in the light environment of the room. On that couch, leaning against the rightmost armrest, sat a person, pale-skinned and pale-clothed. Their hair was styled to curl close to the scalp, layered in deliberate arcs. Their eyes, such a dark brown that they were almost black, were trained on the Reader in their hands, skin tinted pale blue by the glow of the holographic screen. They were frowning.

They tapped their fingers on the canvas cover of the armrest and swallowed. After a moment, they scrolled down the Reader's surface with the thumb resting on the edge of the screen. They read, and read, and then stopped mid-sentence, only to cast their gaze up a few lines and reread, slower this time.

"Power to curse," they murmured, tone smooth with years of speaking experience. They stopped tapping the arm of the couch. "Alcor's demonic energy found in their victims…"

They looked up and over at the desk, at the orange lilies sitting under a stasis spell that extended their shelf life. They stood slowly, setting the Reader down on the couch as they did so, long fingers tugging down the semi-formal blouse they wore. Taking three steps towards the desk, their feet bare against the ash wood floorboards, they waved away the desk chair with a languid motion. They then stood before the desk, thighs pressed against the edge, fingers hovering over the lurid petals. Breathing in, they canted their head just slightly to the side, and then set their fingers on the smooth surface.

For a moment, nothing. Then, they jerked their hand back, hissing in a sharp breath and cradling their fingers close to their chest. They stared at the flowers, eyes wide, lips pressed together. Their shoulders were tight, their stance uneven and drawn back in an uncharacteristically frightened manner. There was no new quiet in the room, no new noise, but a sort of tension set itself to the air, drawing particles into and against each other. Their fingers twitched against the silky fabric of their shirt, cool against too-warm, and eventually they pulled their gaze away from the flowers and to their own hand.

They relaxed their shoulders and straightened their fingers, looked down at the pads of them. The fingertips were red and shiny in the way the newest, thinnest layer of skin always is, blood pumping through delicate veins just under the fragile surface. The whorls and lines of the epidermal ridges were faint there, barely formed, too young to have been shaped completely. They would have to change security requirements until the skin had fully formed.

The person held their injured hand up to the light, only a slight tightening at the edges of their eyes a sign of their residual discomfort. Steam, barely visible even with the sunlight behind the fingers, untwisted itself into the air, dispersing with no sound and barely any motion.

"You will burn," they murmured into the humming stillness, "wherever they touch you." They looked up to the ceiling and sure enough, along the edges, warning runes glowed just enough to be visible to the discerning eye. Demonic energy. The person looked back to their burned-raw fingertips, and their face smoothed out the signs of pain and fear.

"I don't know whether to be happy or upset," they said, slightly louder and still to themselves. They reached down with their good hand and brushed the archivist gloves off the books and onto the leather bound journal. Snapping their fingers to dim the windows, they slid the glove on using the knuckles of their burned hand and glanced over the title to the topmost book. _Gleeful, Silent, Ferocious: Following the soul of 'Mizar' through three lives_.

Carefully, they pulled one orange lily out of the crystal vase, making sure the water running down the stem did not drip on the valuable books. They thumbed one petal, fabric between skin and plant, and waited.

Nothing happened.

Their eyelids rose just a fraction, and they replaced the orange lily in the vase. They did not let go of the stem until the bottom of it hit crystal; only then did they withdraw. "If you are Mizar," they said, dropping their hands to their sides, still staring at the flowers in the vase, "then I wonder what _you_ might be called, Bentley Farkas."

They tipped their chin up, stared at the fading runes on the ceiling, and blinked once, slowly. The desk hummed, but nothing else made sound in the study, darkened by the dimmed sunlight filtering in through the windows.

"I wonder," they said, and then looked back down, at the book. They did not smile, did not frown—just reached their hand out, still in the archivist's glove, and ran their fingers over the embossed lettering of the title. "I wonder."


	2. The Message from Meung-soo Ellig

**A/N:** This should not have been so long, and I should have been doing other things but nope here I am doing this _it was so much fun_.

* * *

"Hey, are you going grocery shopping after work?" Torako asked as she tapped her stylus against the top of her desk. It was her final year of grad school, and Practical Demonology students had to do a semester to year of internship work—for her, that meant she was working at the municipal police station.

"Yeah, we're low on bread and organics and candy. Butter too. Probably some other things. I'm just getting out of the lab, so I should be home a bit after you are, assuming you're still at the station." On the other end, there was a rustle of clothing. "Anything you need?"

Torako grinned. "Moffios!"

Bentley sighed in her ear. "No, Torako."

"Why not?" Torako asked, spinning the stylus on her knuckle and telling herself that she was not, in fact, whining. "I don't play hurling anymore, so I don't have a coach that forbids them!"

"Torako, they're literally advertised as 100% sugar. No."

There was motion out of the corner of Torako's eye, and she turned to see her supervisor's unimpressed blood-shot eyes. She grinned and held up a finger. "But they're not banned! I can eat them if I want, I'm a full grown adult!"

"That's true," Bentley said. "But you can also go out and buy them yourself if you want to eat them, because I'm not doing it for you."

"You jerk!" Torako said, but she was smiling. "Jeez, you know what Tyrone would say to that?"

"Yes, yes, that I'm besmirching the continuity of the Mabel-line, I know, but Tyrone also has a tendency to stick his head too far up his own ass regarding this matter, so I don't really care too much about his opinion," he said.

She huffed. "Fine then, be that way. I have to go anyways, so enjoy your boring shopping trip filled with dumb necessary adult things and no glorious Moffios."

"Ah, yes," Bentley said. She could hear clicking and whirring and then a door sliding open in the background. "The peace, the quiet, however will I stand it."

Torako snorted. "All right you dork, I'm hanging up now. Love you."

"Love you too," Bentley said, and he disconnected the call. Torako pulled her earbud out and slid it into the tiny pocket dimension in the phone—the new Naaama model, 3029— then looked back up at her supervisor. "Hey Officer Nathan."

Officer Nathan closed his eyes and rubbed at them carefully with his hands, even though his iron nails wouldn't have done more than scratched his durable skin. "You know, sometimes I wonder why we still have you on," he said, voice hissing against his iron teeth.

"Because my work is impeccable and you've solved two dead cases since I came on last September," Torako said, putting on her widest grin. "So you can put up with my idiosyncrasies and the tendency to call my platonics at any moment!"

Officer Nathan half-opened his eyes; the light, milky-blue irises were almost white against the veins in his sclera. "That is true. How are they, anyways?"

Torako tipped back in her chair and pressed the stylus up under her bottom lip in thought. "Well," she said, "Ty's been off for a week, visiting relatives I think, so I think he's doing okay! Ben's a little stressed because of work and all the responsibility, but I make sure that he gets enough sleep so that helps. How about yours?"

Officer Nathan frowned. "She's been better. Sick because some shit stabbed her with holly on the side of the street."

Torako stopped leaning back and sat up straight. "Holly? Seriously? Doesn't that—"

"Cause infections in Asanbosam, yeah. I've got a buddy looking into it. She's fought the worst of it off, but it was scary the first couple days. Lucky there were people nearby that spooked the person off." Officer Nathan shook his head. "But that's not why I came over here. You have anything regarding the Tupperman Warehouse case?"

She nodded, and filed the information about Officer Nathan's wife away in the back of her head. Maybe she and Ben could make something for her. "Yeah; the remains of the circle left behind look like they belong to Alû; ancient Sumerian, am I right? But yeah, you know, Alû's a vengeance demon that kind of edges in on dream demon categorization. It's weird."

"I don't know, explain."

Torako nodded. "Okay, so Alû like, goes after its victims—whether these are victims of deals or just like grudge matches—at night and freaks them out with nightmares while they sleep. Sometimes this happens over a course of weeks, and they eventually become so frightened and paranoid that they develop hallucinations, in part due to lack of sleep. It usually ends in suicide, and that's when Alû comes in and tears apart the remains. It, uh, doesn't have any face other than eyes—like, no mouth, or ears, or nose—so it kind of. Eats with its eyes. It's really interesting but also really gross." Once, when Bentley wasn't around, she had Alcor demonstrate 'eating with his eyes' for her out of sheer curiosity. Five seconds in, Torako had to excuse herself to go sit by the bathroom door just in case.

"Sometimes?" Officer Nathan asked, crossing his arms and leaning against Torako's desk. It hummed a little louder and wobbled before stabilizing under his weight.

"Other times, it forcibly possesses the victim—this is only in cases of contractual victims, because otherwise Alû doesn't have the power to override a soul like that—and locks their consciousness in a nightmare world. They're being traumatized on the inside, but on the outside we don't know what's going on because they're unconscious and comatose. It's hard to tell apart from sleep paralysis, which is frustrating because, well, it takes time to figure things out."

"What about demonic signature? Shouldn't that differentiate things?"

Torako nodded. "It does! But Alû's crafty about weaving its signature into something subtle. It's not like Alcor, whose signature is like a rave party broadcasted through an entire city, or blunt and unrefined like Zmeu. Ah—that's the one that likes to feast on young female flesh, you know, what happened two years ago in Canada around Minneapolis. Anyways, because Alû's signature is harder to pull out, diagnosis takes more time, and most people don't even _know_ about Alû so they don't think to do the tests."

Officer Nathan pressed his thin lips together. "So we should keep an eye out for sleep paralysis cases. I'll send a note to the hospitals in the area, make sure they do the necessary tests—will they have that information?"

"It should be in their procedural guidebooks, but if you want, I can research their procedure and send it to you to forward them," Torako said. She flipped her tablet on and scrawled a note to herself. "If they don't find anything—the victim should have been admitted by now—following things up will be a shitton harder. Normally there would be an item of the victim's presented to Alû in order for the right victim to be pursued, but the officers got to the scene too late; too much was cleaned up for me to figure that information out."

Officer Nathan pushed off the desk and rubbed at his eyes again. The desk's hum rose to a squeal for just a moment, and then stabilized again. Torako eyed it with distrust; she saw what had happened to Intern Kina's the other day. "Shit," he said.

"Yeah." Torako switched back to the case document she'd been searching through. "And there's another thing."

"There's always another thing," Officer Nathan said with a short laugh.

"Underneath the circle for Alû, there was another circle," Torako said. She located the right image gallery and opened it, flipping to the picture with the evidence. "Another recent circle. Like, back-to-back recent."

Officer Nathan started. "What kind of cult has that much energy and that many supplies to be able to do that? And still be alive at the end of it?"

"More common than you'd think," Torako said, "but still a bit worrying, yeah. It might be good to keep an eye out for more activity too."

He jammed his thumbs into his belt-loops, closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. "Because what cult would use resources so quickly if they didn't have them to spare. Of course."

Officer Nathan stopped speaking, but Torako waited for him to continue; he had a tendency to gather his thoughts before giving orders.

Finally, he opened his eyes and said, "I'll do a preliminary report to Sergeant Plisetsky tomorrow morning, but I need you to get together a presentation probably for tomorrow afternoon. This might end up being above your pay grade, but to be honest, Special Investigator Rothlisburger was called down to Charlotte and we might end up needing a Demonologist, even if she's a cheeky student like you."

Torako grinned, but pulled up another note on the stylus. "All right, presentation of evidence for tomorrow. I'll get that together tonight; is it all right if I bring work home?"

Officer Nathan snorted. "Kid, as long as you keep people who don't need to be seeing these things from seeing them, there's no issue. Lord knows that there isn't a policeman here who doesn't take work home with them."

"Awesome," Torako said. She tapped the tablet off and collapsed it so it would be easier to slide into her bag. "Then, I'll be taking off if there's nothing else to do?"

"Go on," Officer Nathan said, waving her off. "No reason for you to stick around."

Torako pulled her bag from under the desk and gave Officer Nathan a sloppy salute. Stuffing her work tablet and the containers from lunch into the bag, she thought about dinner. They needed to make something tonight, and it was probably going to be just her and Bentley, so maybe she could surprise him.

Fish, she thought. There was that salmon in the freezer. That would be good.

* * *

The kid—twenty years old, so Dipper supposed that the kid wasn't really a kid-kid by human standards—tipped his head back onto the bed and tapped his forehead twice before canting a finger outwards in greeting. "Yo, Alcor, what's up?"

Dipper spoke in Dashto without even meaning to. "The unspeakable horrors lying in wait about two galaxies away around the star known to them as –" he clicked and gargled out syllables unmanageable by a human throat. "I'm doing okay, though."

The kid snorted and swung his legs onto the wall, feet just underneath a holographic poster of the movie _Making Mine Monday_. "You speak as weird as ever. But really, what's up?"

"Just checking in," Dipper said, flipping upside-down midair. "Making sure you were holding out okay. Weren't your parents acting funny last time?"

"You mean yesterday? Yeah, I figured it out; _Mora_ seems pretty clueless, but _Oare_ knows something's up. I caught her checking things out with the Specreader, so you gotta lay low. Lucky it wasn't _Owera_ , because he'd catch on faster." The kid threw a ball up against the wall and caught it on the rebound. The holographic poster fizzed, and the image rippled at the point of impact for a few seconds before it stabilized again.

Dipper raised his eyebrows and flicked the kid's forehead. Wendy's reincarnations really had no fear, he thought as the kid flicked him back without batting an eye. Kid had known him two weeks, and aside from the first hasty (but powerful) spell thrown at his face upon initial contact, Batoor hadn't so much as flinched at him.

Well, aside from the residual trickle of _olirange_ in his aura, but that both satisfied Dipper and was insignificant enough that he could put it out of mind. "Cheeky."

Batoor shrugged and threw the ball against the wall again. "I figure that you haven't killed me yet, so why not?"

There was something Batoor didn't say there, but Dipper could well enough imagine what it was; it wouldn't be the first time somebody researched him after a first meeting. "Eh, don't count your chickens before they hatch."

The kid frowned and looked up at him. The hints of blue scales around his eyes, a byproduct of a difficult and unusual birth, made the brown irises somehow more vibrant. "What does that even mean? Chickens always hatch from their eggs, why would the number be different?"

Dipper folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "Words are wasted on you."

After a short pause, Batoor reached out and pushed at Dipper's forehead. Dipper squawked and began to flip around, brushing at his forehead as he did so. He caught sight of the window as he turned around, and looked out it—the Hindu Kush mountains rose in the near distance, their terraced sides green and pale with crops and trees before the mountains grew too high and became grey dappled with white. Dipper knew that hundreds of miles south lay the Kabul river, orange from the mix of old curses and counter-curses. He didn't know many beings that dared drop in those waters, though when refined it was fine for consumption. Dipper remembered dragging his claws through the topmost layer of the river a few centuries ago, just out of idle curiosity; despite the lack of physical form, his nails had been burned down to the bed before he'd cut off the magic.

"But your parents," Dipper asked again. "They're really okay?"

"I," Batoor started, and then fell silent. Dipper immediately looked over at him, at the way Batoor's strong eyebrows were furrowed so close together they were almost one. His aura was more fuchsia than lime, and worrying amounts of _inulean_ were threaded through, spiky and unstable.

Dipper floated down onto the bed and sat on the covers. "Batoor?"

Batoor shrugged. "Just arguments, and Oare has been shedding a lot. It's nothing too unusual, and I don't think it'll get bad, but if it does…" He looked up at Dipper, then back at the _Making Mine Monday_ poster. "You. I can make a deal, right?"

It took a lot of effort to squash down the instinctive leer and calculation of how much he could wring out of the human for as little power as possible. It might have shown in his eyes, but Batoor was looking away and Dipper was glad to have the extra moments to try to be a little less callous. "Of course," he said instead. "There would be a price, but of course."

"Good then." Batoor nodded to himself, and then threw the ball again. It landed square on the protagonist's face, hair flying in the wind as her love interest lifted her off her feet. The ripples fanned out from there, making the hair seem like it was actually moving, and the love interest's hijab moved and shifted under the weight of the impact as well. Then the picture was still, and Batoor grinned back at Dipper, teeth a little long from his transfer from womb to eggspace.

"I have a bag of _Kadu Bouranee_ candies in the desk drawer," he said. "Those in exchange for an hour of English tutoring? I have a test next Saturday."

The fuchsia was still there, but it was receding, the lime was growing, and sparking threads of _inulean_ were shifting to swirls of indigo. Dipper grinned wide and held out a hand, blue fire snapping to life. " _Deal_ ," he said.

* * *

Bentley was just putting a second package of tofu into the cart when he felt his phone vibrate twice in his pocket. He held a hand over it, waited to see if it would buzz more, and then pulled it out to check the messages. Unsnapping and expanding the sides, the homescreen fizzed to life. He upped the opacity so that he could see the words better on the screen and then tapped the gently pulsing email application. Narrowing his eyes, he held one hand out and pushed the cart forward to the dairy section while he navigated to the new email in question.

The cart edged to one side right as he saw the name _Meung-soo Ellig_. Looking up, he caught the eye of the other shopper, one he'd just been about to run into if it weren't for the shopping cart's detection and aversion field. He crinkled his eyes shut in apology. They waved it off, and then moved on, long hair swaying down to past their waist.

Meung-soo Ellig. The name sounded familiar, but Bentley couldn't place it for certain. He anchored the cart so that he could lean against it and returned his attention to the phone. If it wasn't important, he would just check the email and answer it once he got home, but it never hurt to take a quick look-see.

He caught a glimpse of the email subject when he tapped the message preview with his thumb. _Sorry for not keeping in touch…_ Bentley twisted his mouth to one side and waited for the message to load.

"Message loaded. Initiating read-thro—"

"Stop!" Bentley said, straightening up and gripping his phone tighter. "Stop stop stop _stars above_ De-initiate read-through."

The phone's voice paused, then spoke again. "De-initiating read-through mode. Entering silent mode."

Bentley let out a breath and dropped his forehead over the phone's surface for a moment. He had forgotten that he'd left it on Read-Through, as was his habit at work; it kept his hands and eyes free to work on things like experimental and highly unstable rune combinations. Dr. Nana Chulanont had already had to replace her phone three times and have surgery once because she didn't remember to put emails on Read-Through.

He raised his head and shifted his forearms on the handle of the shopping cart, then refocused his attention on the email. The scroll bar was, thankfully, not very long at all.

 _"_ _Dear Bentley,  
I don't believe you remember me, as you were too young the one time we met face to face. I sent you an email a year ago regarding the untimely passing of your father, offering my condolences. Due to complications, my husband and I were unable to make the xonge, but it was a choice that was very difficult to make. A child should not have to bury one of their parents, let alone two; my only solace is that you were far too young to remember my sister's passing."_

Bentley startled a little in remembrance, and then frowned. The message had been short, though he hadn't cared at the time because he had read a large number of them. His father's death had invited a lot of words, but not a lot of people.

" _It happens that starting tomorrow I will be in Norfolk, where I believe you were finishing up your last year of school? If you are not in this area and have found a job elsewhere, let me know. I would still be up for a virtual meeting, but the chance to connect with my only living relative gives me great joy.  
Your Aunt,  
Meung-soo Ellig_."

Bentley read the message again, and then again. He twisted his mouth and narrowed his eyes. He didn't know his Aunt; his father had told him about Meung-soo and her husband, but not why they hadn't kept in contact. The fact that they hadn't come to his father's funeral also rubbed him the wrong way. But she was also family—as far as he knew, his only living family. Other than Dipper and Torako.

Bentley let out a somewhat shaky breath, then closed the email app and downsized his phone. He couldn't think about his Dad, not here. He slipped the compacted phone into his pocket and then continued on down the aisle, snagging a box of quartered butter as he passed them. They needed another couple jumbo size candy bags, because Dipper was due home any day now and demon brother or not, he still had the biggest sweet tooth Bentley had ever seen.

* * *

Torako was just setting the salmon—rubbed with olive oil, sprinkled with seasoning and covered with tomatoes and mushrooms and mozzarella cheese—into the oven when the front door of the apartment slid open. "Hey Ben!" she called. "I'm getting dinner started!"

"You are a lovely person," Ben called back. She heard the door slide shut and she stuck her hands in the Qwikclean station in the countertop by the stove. The mess was sucked right off her hands, but she still waved them in the air when she pulled them out.

"You need any help getting those groceries in?" Torako asked, already moving around the island in the middle of the kitchen. It was a nice apartment; both Bentley's old one and the apartment they'd shared in undergrad were fairly basic, but Torako had insisted on something in a nicer neighborhood and with more space when the lease on Ben's old one had expired.

"Nah, they're in the Extendable Basket, it's fine." Bentley swung it up to show her.

Torako smirked. "Told you that was a good buy."

He rolled his eyes, but set the basket on the counter. "Don't lord it over me, jerk."

"That's impossible," Torako said, leaning on the counter and ruffling his hair. "You're so tiny that everything is over you."

"That was really reaching," Bentley said. He opened the basket and started pulling things out, leaning on the counter and pushing himself onto his tiptoes so that he could see better. Torako was still ruffling his hair.

"What, like you right now?"

Bentley's stare was almost as flat as the time last week that she'd cracked a Twin Souls pun at him. He sighed, then batted her hand away. "Worse," he said. "Now help me put the groceries away, you nerd."

Torako grinned and let the line of conversation drop. She pulled out a couple cartons of tofu and a handful of vegetable bags before toeing open the refrigerator and tossing them in. They would remain in stasis until pulled out again. Torako loved stasis tech. She'd lived with bare-bones tech for a year and to be honest, the rate at which food went bad was a big reason she stopped the lonely Demon Hunter lifestyle and entered grad school.

Speaking of food… "Hey, Ben, I have a question. You up for some treat-making this fine Thursday evening?"

"Yeah, I've got some energy, why?" Ben spoke into the basket, his arm in the pocketspace up to his elbow as he rooted around for the last of the groceries. Torako eyed his pile and, although she hadn't expected him to get it, felt a flash of sadness at the lack of Moffios.

"Officer Nathan's wife got hit the other day," Torako said. She reached over for the cheese and then slid it into the cheese bin in the door. "It was holly."

Bentley looked up at her, both arms in the pocketspace of the basket. " _Holly_? What the fuck?"

"I know, right? She's an elementary school teacher, for Fishery's sake." Torako shut the door and leaned against the fridge, thankful for a model that didn't respond whenever absolutely anything touched its input surfaces. "Who even does that?"

"I don't even know," Bentley said. With both hands, he pulled out a large honeydew and set it on the counter, then submerged himself up to the elbows again. "In that case, I have more than enough energy. What were you thinking of making?"

"Brownies, maybe? Or some mochi, if we have the stuff for it."

Bentley pulled out a cantaloupe and rolled both of the melons over to Torako. She intercepted them and put them in the fridge. "Nope, I forgot to get more mochiko flour, so brownies it is. How long until dinner's done?"

"I just put the salmon in the oven, so it'll be another twenty minutes," Torako said. She snagged both loaves of bread and slung them in the bread-keeper next to the fridge.

"We can get everything mixed together now, if you wanted," Bentley said. He pulled eggs out of the basket, and then three giant mixed bags of candy. "This isn't something that requires a Mizar and Shadow deal, right?"

Torako shook her head and reached up into a cabinet to pull out the oil. "I don't think so, not unless we get more incidents. I hope this is just a one-off thing."

"They wouldn't have targeted her because of her job, right?" Bentley asked. He put away the basket, stretching up onto his tiptoes to fit it on top of the fridge. He was biting his lip. Torako pressed her lips together in an attempt to smother a grin, then dug around in the measuring drawer for a cup.

"She's an elementary school teacher," Torako said again. She pulled out the right cup and uncollapsed it, then found a couple of measuring spoons and another, smaller cup for good measure. "Not somebody people usually target."

"It wouldn't be a wave of Specists, would it?"

Torako shook her head from where she was crouched, pulling out the cocoa powder and sugar. When she stood, her knee cracked, and she grimaced. "Nothing's been noticed, no comments or tension. There's some in the Eurasian-African peninsula, but as far as I know, nothing's transferred. Not really my area of expertise, but I guess I can ask around. Butter?"

"Just bought some." Bentley tossed a stick of butter to her, and she snatched it out of the air before dropping it on the counter. "What about her magic?"

"I don't think it's powerful enough." Torako blinked at the butter. "Hey, you got the quartered kind!"

"Blocks of butter are affronts to nature," Bentley said. "Of course I got quartered. So do you think it was just a mugging? Holly seems really specific."

Torako sighed. "It might be a hate crime. It might also be like a personal grudge—maybe the person had a bad run-in with Asanbosam before? Maybe the iron nails just triggered them for some reason? It's happened before. I just don't have enough info to know, and I don't think it's priority."

Bentley nodded and climbed on the island to pull a saucepan from one of the hoverfield hooks. "That's fair, I guess. Officer Akuapem doesn't seem like the kind of person to push for that unless other people got involved."

"Yeah," Torako said. She nabbed the flour out of the fridge, and switched it to her other hand when Bentley extended the saucepan to her. "There's. Also bigger problems. I'm not supposed to really talk about it, because it could end up being above my paygrade."

"Demons?"

Torako set the flour on the counter and the pan on the stove. She ran her hand through her bangs and thought about how long her hair was getting—it was nearly to her shoulders. "Demons."

"Mizar and Shadow?" Bentley offered again. Torako turned the stove on to high and pulled a knife out to cut a bit of butter off. She looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrow raised.

"Two times in one conversation? What's bringing this on?" She didn't say no. Not until she was sure that they wouldn't be needed.

Bentley hummed and hopped off the counter. He nudged one of the stoolspots by the stove, and then climbed up onto the footstool that slid out of the baseboards. "It's…maybe not complicated, but kind of."

"Demons?" Torako asked. She set the butter in the heating pan and watched it melt.

"No," Bentley said. "Family."

Torako looked at him so fast the pan jostled in her grip, sending butter sliding along its bottom. "Family? You? I thought your family was all dead, except for that one aunt and uncle you've never even met?"

"That's them," Bentley said. He pulled a mixing bowl out of the cupboard and snapped it open with the flick of a wrist before passing it down to Torako. She switched hands to take it from him.

"Didn't they not even show up for the funeral?"

"Exactly." Bentley pulled out a silicone baking dish and pushed it open by the corners. It was old and didn't respond well to snapping.

Torako was quiet for a moment. She set the bowl down by the cocoa and flour and sugar, and pulled a spatula out from above the stove so that she could move the melted butter around. The smell, salty-sweet, wafted up to her nose as she chewed around the words in her mouth, turned them over and tasted them for the right ones.

She reached for the butter and chopped up another couple chunks before dropping them off and listening to the soft sound of them pulling apart from themselves, of them relaxing into a form less rigid. Bentley stepped off the stool next to her and nudged it back into place with his foot. As he passed, he let one hand trail across the span of her back, and suddenly she knew what words to say.

Or rather, what to ask. "What did they say?"

Bentley inhaled through his nose as he opened the flour. He dipped the measuring cup into the bag and, using his hand and the side of the bag, leveled it as he pulled it out. He tipped it over the rim of the bowl, and it fell in, crumbling at the bottom and cracking at the top but mostly keeping its form.

Torako waited.

"It was Meung-soo," he said at last. "She apologized for not being at Dad's funeral."

His tone was flat, his hands were steady and his arms were too stiff as he went to measure out another scoop of flour. Torako pulled the bag of cocoa to her and measured out the right amount of cocoa powder. As she stirred it into the pan of melted butter, she glanced at Bentley. He was worrying his bottom lip, and when he didn't speak, she brushed her arm against his. He glanced back at her, and then away, orange bangs falling in his eyes.

"She wanted to know if I was still in Norfolk," Bentley said. "She's going to be here. Tomorrow. Was wondering if I wanted to meet."

Torako looked back at the pan and stirred the cocoa into the butter some more. Two years ago—no, before her Demon Hunter year—she would have told Bentley to say 'screw you' to his aunt. If Meung-soo hadn't put Bentley first, she would have reasoned, why bother? And a part of Torako still thought this, still wanted to say this, because any person who refused to comfort family, who refused to see off family, was wrong in ways Torako couldn't comprehend.

Instead, she asked, "What do you think of this?"

Bentley measured the sugar into the mixing bowl, and then reached over to snag the salt off the seasoning shelf on the wall behind the stove. Torako leaned out of his way, and then back into the space when he retreated.

"I don't know," Bentley said finally. "I guess I want to—she's my only family, you know? And she's mom's sister. But they also didn't come out, and that's. That. Yeah."

Bentley rubbed at his eyes, and Torako rubbed his back with one hand. "I know," she said. Her throat closed up, and she hat to shut her eyes and take a deep breath. Philip still hurt to think of, even indirectly. "I know."

She felt his back shudder as he let out an equally tenuous exhale. He pressed back against her for a moment, and then asked, "Can you pass me a mixing spoon?"

"Of course." Torako pulled it from the utensil crock and flipped it in her hand so that it extended to Bentley handle-first.

He took it, and stirred the dry ingredients together even as Torako finished stirring her butter-cocoa mixture. She kept at it, though; she needed his part before they could finish mixing the batter together. Torako watched the spatula push the liquid chocolate around, the rippling brown of it thick and silky under the kitchen light. She pulled the spatula around the edges so that nothing stuck to the bottom of the pan, and then continued to stir.

"What would you do?" Bentley asked, at last.

Torako pursed her lips, watched the chocolate undulate in the pan under the pressure of the spatula. "I don't know what I would do," she admitted. "I've never been in that situation. My dads and I might be a little on the estranged side, but we still love each other. I still talk to Momma Mai every once in a while. We're not…not like your family. All not speaking or gone. Everybody went to Gram's funeral, even Dad and the rest of us, even though they didn't get along too great.

Next to her, Bentley was quiet, but it was a kind of listening-quiet, not thinking-quiet, so Torako kept talking.

"But if you're asking what I think…" Torako pushed at the chocolate, then looked at Bentley to see him looking at her. "I think that it wouldn't hurt to meet with her once. Just once. In a public setting, with me or without me. Just so you can get a feel for each other in person."

Bentley nodded, swallowed, and then turned his attention back to the mixing bowl. He pulled the mixing spoon through it a couple times, then stopped. "What if she doesn't…I mean, what if she hated Dad? And that's why she didn't come?"

"Then she's not worth it," Torako said. "But you have to see if she is, first. If she is, I think it would be nice for you to have family other than Dipper."

"And you," Bentley said. The admission, though nothing new, sent warmth pouring through Torako and pulled her lips into what was probably a goofy smile. "Don't discount yourself."

"Of course not," Torako said. Her smile widened into a grin. "But we both know that nobody's more family than me, so I had to throw Dipper out there for Meung-soo to have some competitive chance."

"That makes no sense," Bentley said, but he was smiling a little. "I hear you, though. I'll email her back—where do you suggest meeting?"

"Coffeeshops are always good," Torako said. "Maybe this weekend? Saturday, brunch or lunch. I can snoop around in a couple shops nearby if it's Tarannala's Treasury?"

Bentley bumped his hip against hers and then set the mixing spoon on the countertop. "Tarannala's Treasury it is."

Torako nodded. "Okay, good! Now, we've got three minutes until the salmon's done, so let's get this brownie mix mixed up! Pour pour pour pour!"

Bentley hefted the mixing bowl in both hands and tipped the contents, slowly, into the saucepan as Torako stirred, stirred, stirred. The hair on the back of Torako's neck stood up right as she felt the wards in the apartment flicker and then stabilized, and she only just managed to keep the saucepan upright in the face of the joy that pulled her around to look behind her. Bentley wasn't much better.

There, sitting on the counter, was Dipper, smirking his little demon smirk that meant it'd been too long since Torako had argued him down a peg. "Miss me?" he asked, stretching a leg into the air. He was materializing his thigh-high boots today, Torako noticed. And his lacy overcoat. She grinned.

"We didn't call you, did we?" Bentley said, tone dry but face soft. "Of course not."

Dipper held his hands over where a human heart would be and fell back on the counter. "You monster!"

"Says the demon," Torako said. She turned back to the batter. "Bentley, watch out, you're getting close to the edge."

Bentley swore and jostled the mixing bowl. Some of the contents fell onto the stove and burned. Torako snapped her fingers and pointed behind her at the island.

"One—and only one!—taro roll candy in exchange for you removing what Bentley just now spilled onto the stove."

"A deal already?" Dipper purred, and he was right up behind her, his elbows on her shoulders. She twitched, then relaxed. "Oh, I do like to hear that. _Deal_."

The mistake vanished, and Bentley emptied the rest of the dry ingredients into the saucepan. Torako stirred, watched the white disappear into chocolaty goodness, and tilted her head back just far enough that her cheek brushed against Dipper's.

Everything was good in the world again, Torako thought.


	3. Brownies for Hepsa

**A/N:** Long wait but here it is!

* * *

Saying yes to Meung-soo had been easier than Bentley thought it would be. Her reply to his suggestion, though still a little distant, felt more relaxed, more human, than the last message. She had also agreed to lunch at Tarannala's Treasury, though it seemed that Mikael wouldn't be coming with her; apparently, he had work at home and couldn't make the trip over from Switzerland. Bentley found himself looking forward to the meeting, oddly enough. He was interested enough that on Saturday he found himself at an outside table at Trannala's early, fingers curled around a tall glass of complimentary, cherry-infused water, waiting for his Aunt to arrive.

On the table, his phone vibrated. He took a sip of water, then murmured, "Open, show message."

The phone expanded with a quiet _sshhf_ , the screen blinking to life before his messages were selected by the phone's program. He was glad to have remembered to set the phone to silent before coming out; the family at the table next to him seemed very straight-laced, the kind that stared loud strangers into submission. Bentley shifted in his chair so that his back was more to them, and read the message.

 _Oh my god ben they have the new stars of wood and gold, they have the new swg I'm going to die I'm so happy._

Bentley snorted, his shoulders lifting with humor. He reached for the phone and typed back a quick reply telling Torako that she could buy it if she wanted, but don't expect him to read any kind of Twin Souls related drudgery, and he didn't care how good the prose was.

Moments later, his phone vibrated in his hand and he looked down at it.

 _Hey now, even TYRONE is excited about it. Tyrone._

 _Don't care_ , he typed back. _And you're bluffing, he might not hate Stars of Wood and Gold, but he doesn't actually like it._

He set the phone down and took a sip of his water again. Half of the reason to go to Tarannala's, he thought, was this right here. Thanks be for complimentary cherry water. The phone buzzed, twice, and he went to read the message—in all-caps, so Dipper was borrowing Torako's device—when he heard his name.

"Bentley?"

Bentley looked up into the face of a woman he didn't know. She was clutching the strap of a small purse in her hand, thin bracelets glinting off her wrist. The spots of light let through the revolving canopy above the table tracked slow and smooth across the curves of her wide face and the faux-cotton texture of her light jacket. She had crow's feet around her eyes, but he thought that he could see his mother's nose—seen only in photos and in the bridge of his own—in the way hers lay on her face.

"Aunt Meung-soo?" he asked, standing up on reflex.

She smiled, and it curved her cheeks up to crease her eyes from the bottom. "Flesh and bone," she said. She pulled out a chair, which was old-fashioned and four-legged. Single-limb chairs were way more stable, but it was part of Tarannala's antiquated charm. "I thought it might be you; you look a lot like your father, though you're built more like my Soo-jan."

Bentley smiled back, ignoring the sudden pang of pain in his heart, and sat down himself His chair dipped far enough down on its levitators that it touched the ground before stabilizing again. "Soo-jan is my Mom, right? Susan?"

Meung-soo nodded, sliding her hand against the edge of the table to bring up the menu and alert the waitstaff to a new customer. It flickered into existence in front of her, and she met his eyes over the top of it. "Yes. She went by both, but Philip called her Susan more often than not so I'm unsurprised that he would refer to her that way. Did you talk about her much, if you don't mind me asking?"

His hand found his phone, and he traced his thumb up and down the side closest. He could try. "Not…not much. Just that she was out on a Dip and the excavation site turned dangerous quicker than expected. That Dad liked her laugh and that she sang me to sleep every night. Little things."

Bentley fell quiet. Dad had always gotten the softest, strangest expression on his face when he talked about Mom, Bentley remembered. He remembered fuzzy pajamas and his hands on the photo album's screen, Dad's warmth against his back and his arm wrapped around Bentley's torso, like he was afraid to let Bentley go, and—

He looked down at the phone, at Dipper's message. _IT DOESN'T HAVE US ALL FUCKING THIS TIME_ , it read. Of course Dipper knew that already, without having even read a single word. He found himself taking a deep breath and anchoring himself to the words. _HALLEFUCKINGLULIJAH IF TORA MAKES ME SUFFER THROUGH IT I MIGHT NOT DESPISE EVERY SECOND._

He wasn't quite sure what 'hallefuckinglulijah' meant, but Dipper had said it enough times for Bentley to think it was some kind of curse, or maybe a prayer. It could have been anything, with Dipper.

Meung-soo laughed, and the self-depreciating edge to it made Bentley look up at her, startled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I told myself I wouldn't bring up sore subjects right away, and here I am. This was more about us getting to know each other, not dwelling in the past."

"It's…understandable," Bentley said. He noticed that he menu in front of her was gone; she must have sent in her request to the shop. His sandwich would come out at the same time as whatever she ordered would.

They were silent a while longer, the space between them awkward. Bentley stared at his water glass, watched the condensation bead down the outside of it, and listened to the chatter around. The table next to them, with the stern family, were discussing the failure of the local Petty Matter Investigative Squad to hold up their promises to return missing pets to their homes, and dear goodness where would Pretty have gone that was so impossible to find? Their youngest kept making babbling noises, though; when set against the self-righteous indignance, it made Bentley grin to himself.

"So," Meung-soo said, and Bentley refocused on her, losing the thread of conversation regarding how little Pretty would never run away. He took a sip of his water. She glanced away and then back at him, eyes dark and warm and a little unsure. "What do you do, Bentley?"

Work questions. He knew this line of conversation well. "I'm a practical researcher at Niklakka Labs; most of what I do is taking theory—"sometimes from idiots who didn't know what they were doing, so he had to fix the theory and he _hated_ pure theory—"and putting it into practice until we get the right combination of sigils."

Meung-soo's eyebrows rose. "Sigils? That's a rather odd choice, even if it is on the rise. What made you want to study that?"

He tilted his head and lifted a hand to shake it back and forth. On the table, his phone vibrated, but he didn't pick it up. "I was good at it, and I enjoy it. Also, it's really handy and it's not something a lot of people know how to do well. Most can't even tell sigils apart from other writing-based magics."

"Can you show me something easy?" She asked, leaning forward so that her elbows were planted against the table. Light slid across the forearms of her jacket, grass-green against shadow. "I don't know much about sigils."

Bentley felt his eyebrows twitch up a little. Usually, people changed the subject after hearing what Bentley's job was. "Okay," he said, and he picked the phone up off the table. _She come?_ Asked Torako. He shot off a quick reply, and then pulled up a DrawNote tab and full-screened it.

"So this," he drew an upright triangle with a stylus materialized by the program, "is commonly recognized as the alchemical symbol for fire, but it serves the same purpose as a sigil. And if you draw an activation line through it—" A small burst of flame flickered to life above the screen, not powerful enough to make a dint in Bentley's energy or damage anything. It disappeared quickly, but when he glanced at Meung-soo, she looked enraptured. "It releases the energy pent up in the symbol."

"So I could do that on my phone too?" She reached for her purse, eyes still on his hands.

"Definitely not," Bentley said. "Mine is warded and prepped for sigil work because of my job; because my school had them on all the issued tablets, but it is an extra fee and has to be specially requested."

"Oh," she said. "How much extra?"

"It depends on the power levels. The school issued tablets weren't too expensive, from what I remember, but," Bentley trailed off. He popped off the case of his phone and leaned across the table to show Meung-soo the sigils chained along its edge, tiny and delicate. "Mine has protections as strong as we know how to make. Something like the fire sigil I just showed you would be much less intricate, and much less expensive."

Meung-soo traced a line of sigils, all carefully activated with a single, complicated line. She hummed, eyes narrowed in concentration. "This must have cost a lot, then."

Bentley shrugged and looked away. The edges of his mouth twitched up. "Not really. Just my effort."

She raised her head, and he looked back at her. "You did this?"

He nodded.

"But they're so tiny!" Meung-soo bent closer to the phone, like she could absorb all the secrets of the craft if she could just get her eyes near enough. "I thought this was machine crafted!"

"No, sigils need more of a sentient touch," Bentley said.

"Ah!" Meung-soo snapped her fingers twice and pulled far enough away from the phone to catch his eye again. "But wait, if sigils are anything like wards, then they need sentient energy to work right?"

"Yes," Bentley said. His eyebrows were raised. "Not many people know that wards need SE, much less think to make that connection."

Meung-soo tilted her head and went back in to study the sigil chain. "I'm a Magitechnician who works in Practical Applications; I have to know my wards."

Bentley passed her his phone and leaned back. He took a sip of his cherry water. "Aren't there people working to integrate sigils more into that kind of thing?"

"In some places—North Africa has been at the forefront of that push, but it's pretty fledgling. I think what puts companies off is how personal everything about sigils is." She very carefully drew the back of one manicured nail against the string of sigils; Bentley wondered where she went to get that kind of nail job, and how much it would cost to get one himself. "Taking what you said about sigils needing to be drawn instead of machine-made, that makes sense. I hadn't considered that."

Bentley nodded. He curled his fingers around the glass and watched Meung-soo. Her eyes gleamed, even in the spotted light, and she was hunched over like he did whenever he was particularly engrossed in something. Meung-soo was smiling, her expression unreserved the way it hadn't been when she'd first walked up.

Maybe, Bentley thought, something really would come of this.

* * *

The next day, Torako knocked on Officer Nathan's apartment door, her briefcase in one hand and Bentley under her arm. Dipper was crowded in front of them, and held the tray of brownies in two hands.

"I could have blipped us here," he groused, human skin on and already sweaty. They had walked over, the day unusually warm for early April.

"And what about Torako's job makes that a good idea?" Bentley murmured from by Dipper's shoulder.

"It wouldn't be that noticeable," Dipper said.

"Says the little shit who _wasn't_ up five nights in a row not only proofing the entire apartment, but sewing careful and _very difficult_ sigils into everybody's clothing. Sewing. Not drawing, _sewing_." It had been several months since Torako nearly tripped the station's detectors, and Bentley still wasn't over it.

"Shush," Torako whispered. "We are here to be a very normal family who does very normal things in their time off like baking brownies and visiting people who have recently been attacked."

"Somehow I don't think that last part is exactly normal, Tora."

Dipper snickered. Torako kicked him in the ankle, and he hissed a little. She was saved from immediate retribution by the door opening, and Officer Nathan's voice saying, "Please come in."

"Thank you very much for having us!" Torako said, herding Bentley and Dipper into the apartment. "We brought brownies, just in case that would cheer Holly up."

"She can't have solids yet, but I'll place them in stasis so that she can enjoy them when she recovers." Officer Nathan looked—it was hard to tell with him, but he looked tired. Torako didn't pause or let on that she'd noticed, but she did. "Thank you all for coming."

"Can't have solids?" Bentley asked. She pulled off her shoes, and when she kneeled to put them down she absentmindedly tugged at Bentley's laces. He braced himself on her back and toed out of them so that Torako could set his next to hers.

"They got her in the throat," Officer Nathan said. "Used some kind of substance that makes healing harder. Holly was bad enough, but this made it worse."

Torako tugged at Dipper's shoes, and he ruffled her hair in thanks before taking them off.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Dipper said. She could tell by the tone that he was biting something back, and Torako wondered at how far he'd come since she'd met him years ago, bloody and demonic and hovering over Bentley protectively in the wake of a situation that still gave her nightmares.

She set Dipper's loafers on the other side of Bentley's shoes, and then stood to see Dipper pass Officer Nathan the brownies. "Is she resting right now?"

Officer Nathan's lips pulled back in a smile. She could see the glinting of his iron teeth in the crack. "No. She's lively today, and has the Mindword app on her tablet. If you want, she's in the bedroom at the end of the hall."

"We'll go say hi, then," Torako said. She pushed the briefcase, which she'd set on the floor, closer to the line of shoes and set a hand each on Dipper's and Bentley's backs. "Again, thank you for having us."

Officer Nathan nodded. "I'll let you say hi to her," he said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Dipper was warm under her hand, his outdated formal shirt a little stiff against her palm. Under her right hand was Bentley in one of his favorite, but also nicer jackets. If she moved her hand, Torako knew that she'd feel the embroidery shift under her hand, pushed into action by the pressure of her fingers. Other people might not know looking at it, but Bentley had embroidered it, and it was full of sigils—Torako couldn't even name all of them.

Up along the back of her neck, she could feel the residual tingle of anti-demon wards.

"Tyrone," Bentley said, "you don't have to hold your arms like that anymore."

Dipper snorted and very quickly folded his arms like he was hiding his hands. "Like what?"

"Like an idiot."

Dipper stiffened under her hand. "Excuse you, I was solving complex calculus when I was _twelve_. What were you doing when you were twelve? Not that!"

"Keep telling yourself that."

"Play nice, children," Torako said. She looked to one side of the hall, where Officer Nathan had a series of moving and stationary images. One was of him and his wife, Hepsa; they were smiling, dressed in thin, traditional clothing that let the sunlight in through the fabric. They held a ball of rose-thorn vines in their hands between the two of them, and no blood was to be seen. He had explained the significance of it once to Torako, but she had forgotten what he'd said.

In the picture, Hepsa was round-faced and smiling, just a few centimeters shorter than her husband. When they got to the open bedroom door, she was barely recognizable under the red-orange bruises and the white bandage wrapped around her throat.

Bentley sucked in a breath and paused in the doorway. Dipper kept going forward, and Torako, with a spine tempered by a year of cult-hunting and all the pain that came with it, pressed against Bentley's back and smiled. "Hey Mrs. Akuapem! We gave them to your husband to put in stasis, but we brought you some brownies for when you feel better!"

Hepsa smiled with one side of her mouth. The left half remained where it was. Paralysis from the holly weapon, Torako thought. Maybe complicated by the poison. She swallowed; the paralytic should have worn off by now.

Bentley found his feet again, and stepped forward. "I—I'm so sorry that this happened, I can't believe that somebody would do this."

The woman on the bed huffed and patted the bed with her hands—first palm down, then palm up. The left hand was slower to move than the right, but at least it moved.

Dipper sighed, dragged a stool over, and sat on it, knees apart and an inch from the bed. Torako couldn't see his face from her position by the door, but she imagined that he was looking Hepsa up and down, taking in her aura. "Long recovery, huh?"

Hepsa made a sort of gravelly gurgling in the back of her throat and reached out to the bedside table for her tablet. There was a glowing IV device in her arm, undoubtedly connected to the floating bag of solution in the corner. It wouldn't be a saline drip, but Torako didn't know what Asanbosam were prescribed.

They waited for Hepsa to blink her eyes at the device, and she turned it around in one hand. The motions were more labored than Torako liked.

 _The worst part is that I'm missing a month of school,_ the tablet read. _The children are just learning the incantation for firefly lights. I had looked forward to it._

Torako grinned. "Firefly lights? I remember learning that! I was shit at it, but it was a lot of fun. Bentley, were you any better?"

He looked over his shoulder at her, a little confused. "Torako, you know I was homeschooled. And," his eyes got a little misty, "you know that Dad—"

Dipper reached over and tugged Bentley onto his lap. "YEAH I was homeschooled too, and the curriculum just wasn't the same! In fact, we didn't touch any incantations until I was like a teenager, it was the worst. I've never learned it!"

Hepsa's eyes, faded green, widened. She blinked, and on the tablet: _You've never learned? Neither of you?_

"Neither of them," Torako confirmed. It occurred to her that it was taking Officer Nathan a long time to put the brownies in stasis.

 _What a shame._ Hepsa frowned, again with one side of her face, and tapped one stubby finger against the side of the tablet.

Bentley looked back at her, his arm slung over Dipper's shoulder for balance. Torako flicked her eyes towards Hepsa, and then nodded at him. He frowned at her, obviously not getting what she was trying to tell him. He seemed more dense than usual—too many late nights?—so Torako huffed and set her hands on her hips.

"I'm sure that if you're up to it, they'd love a quick lesson," Torako put forward for both Dipper and Bentley. Bentley's face lit up with understanding, and he turned back to Hepsa.

"Absolutely! But only if you have the energy."

Hepsa already looked a little more solid, despite the fiery bruises showing even through her thick skin. She smiled, lifted her left hand very, very slowly to rub at the skin behind her long ears. _I would like that, yes_.

Dipper opened his mouth. "But I can't do—"

Bentley hit Dipper's shoulder too forcefully for Torako to fairly judge it a pat. "It's okay Tyrone, I know that you're self conscious about your inability to do much magic—his aptitude for it is really low—but this is a spell that _Torako_ was able to do when she was six. Six. And you're how old?"

Unsaid was _are you saying that you, an immortal demon, are weaker than a six year old child with an aptitude that runs in the opposite direction of magic?_ Torako snorted.

Sure enough, Dipper bristled. "Twenty-seven," he hissed out through clenched teeth. "And fine. Maybe something has changed in all these years."

Hepsa, for a bed-ridden Asanbosam with a half-frozen face, could beam really well for having sharp, iron teeth. The first steps to the firefly spell were listed on the tablet within seconds, and Torako had to laugh out loud.

"I'll leave you all to it," Torako said, waving one hand and heading down the hall. She passed the wall of pictures and wondered if, once they got their own home, Bentley and Dipper would be up for something like that. A wall of them, over the years. She stopped, looked at a picture of Hepsa and Nathan dancing, decades younger and smiling, and wanted to be able to do that herself, decades in the future.

She shook off the thought as she peered into the kitchen. Officer Nathan was standing there, staring at the stasis container. He was hunched over, shoulders drawn in a way that unnerved Torako with their vulnerability. She knocked on the wall, and said, "Everything okay?"

Officer Nathan startled, his feet scraping against the floor as he turned. "Oh, Ms. Lam. Torako. Has it been long?"

"Not too," she said. She stepped into the kitchen, her socks sliding a little with the lack of traction. "What's up?"

He inhaled and leaned back against the countertop. He narrowed his eyes at her like he was watching her for the first time. It was, Torako realized in a flash of memory, like that cult member informant from forever ago: on the edge of trusting Torako but not sure if the leap forward was worth it. "It is…just a lot. Everything will be fine, don't worry."

"Of course it's a lot, it's about Hepsa." She propped herself against the opposite counter, near an impressive collection of mugs, and slid her hands into her pockets. She relaxed her body, softened the tilt of her head. "It's okay to have it feel like a lot."

Officer Nathan snorted. "Hepsa is a big part of it. If I didn't have a nurse to stay in when I am not home..."

Torako didn't respond immediately. She watched how his hands gripped the counter, fingernails curling into (probably literally) the bottom edge of it. His knuckles were a thin, watered-down yellow with the pressure of his grip. She breathed in and out a few times, and then breached the silence.

"You're worried," she said. "About Hepsa. And about the case?"

He waited a few moments before responding. "And about the case."

"Still nobody reported at the hospital?" Torako was worried, so the hint of it in her voice was genuine, and the frown on her face was real.

"No. And I'm in contact with them a lot." He pulled one of his hands off the counter—sure enough, there was a dusting of something on the tips of his fingernails—and dragged it down his face.

Torako watched the way he inhaled. She was not used to this Officer Nathan. This Officer Nathan was less Officer Nathan, and more Nathan Akuapem who happened to be an officer. Maybe…

"Have things been happening around here, too?" Torako asked. She had a sudden thought: "Has somebody tried to break in?"

"No, no, nobody's done that," Nathan said. He looked her over again. She let him, doing her best to not stiffen under his gaze. Sometimes, when he looked that hard, she was reminded that his species had a history of devouring human beings—but that's all it was. History. It was in the past, and she was going to keep it there.

She had good practice with that, too, considering the fact she lived with an actual demon. He breaks her arm, and what does Torako do? After a few break-downs and panic-attacks, she pulls herself together and demands snuggles, more sparring and returns to trusting him with her mind and body. She definitely wasn't looking to do het chicken with Officer Nathan, but she was used to trusting a person over an instinct.

Finally, Nathan exhaled and set his hand back on the countertop. His knuckles were no longer pressed up against the skin. "You're a good intern, Torako."

"Why thank you," she said.

"I do mean it," he said. He shifted, started dragging his thumb across the bottom corner of the counter. He wasn't looking at her. "You're a good worker, even though you can push at the rules and cause a bit of trouble. And you're a good person."

Torako shifted, a little uncomfortable. "I…thank you. I know I can rub people the wrong way with my attitude, so I try, and it's good to know that I'm succeeding with you at least, but…why are you telling me this now?

Nathan smiled a thin, worn smile at her. "Because…well, you're right. About things going on here."

Torako raised her eyebrows. "Nasty things?"

"Not really. Little things. They build up."

She pulled her hands out of her pockets and set her elbows on the counter, slouching down a little to reach. Torako didn't look away from Officer Nathan. "If you don't mind me asking, what little things?"

Officer Nathan shook his head. "Nothing worrying, mostly personal. A few neighbors have been pestering me about their missing pets and insisting that I do something, and last night somebody broke into Milla's store to steal a new fridge. They have been…vocal about the ineptitude of the police, to say the least."

"The pets in last few days, I'm guessing?"

He nodded. "The pets could have run away, but the neighbors refuse to entertain that notion, and refuse to register their complaints with the right office no matter how often I suggest that. It is tiring."

Torako grimaced. "I can't really do anything about the neighbors or the store, but…would it help if we interns did some leg work for the case, at least? I mean, like, calling apartment owners up or meeting with them with quiet requests to check up on their residents, just in case."

"It might," Nathan said. He tipped his head back, the light from overhead easing the harsh shadows on his face. "I had been entertaining the idea myself."

"I can send out an email tonight, to give everybody a heads-up." Torako drummed her fingers over the countertop. "Oh! And I know you don't like work stuff at home, so I'm really sorry to bring it up after this whole conversation, but I thought it might be good to hand you a copy of the research I've done—you mentioned having a personal office here?"

"As long as we don't have to go through it," Officer Nathan said, "I will be fine. Are the files out in the entryway?"

"Yes." Torako pushed off the counter. Down the hall, she could hear Bentley laughing. "I'll go get them for you."

"Thank you, Torako." Officer Nathan was smiling a little. She flashed one back and turned to leave the kitchen to grab her work case.

"Torako?"

She turned back, a hum in the back of her throat.

Officer Nathan's eyes were soft at the edges. "Truly. Thank you."

"Of course," she said back, fingers curled around the doorway of the kitchen. "It's not a problem."

* * *

"Of course it's not a problem!" Dipper insisted, Monday night in Southwest Canada, in what used to be Bellevue, Washington. "I love watching them!"

"Ah, Lata feels more them now? Good to know, thank you," said Kanti Pines. She fingered the strap of her purse. "But are you sure you don't mind watching her tonight? Alone?"

Dipper cracked a human grin at her. It always put Kanti and Reyansh at ease when he wore his human skin, even if it itched a little. Henry was worth it. "You can't help a babysitter bailing, and Bentley and Torako both work tomorrow. I can handle it, I have all the time in the world on my hands!"

"If you're sure," Kanti said again. She pushed her hair behind her ear. If Dipper focused hard enough, he could see Reina in the cant of her nose. It was nice, to see the physical echoes of family in Mabel's descendants. "Reynash, dearest, we need to go! The party starts in thirty minutes, and you know how traffic gets!"

"No! Papa can't leave, he's playing with me!"

Dipper grinned up the stairs. "What, you don't want to play with Uncle Dipper?"

There was a pause, and then little feet thudded against the carpet upstairs, Reynash laughing behind them. Lata soon was at the top of the stairs, then was toddling their way down in large, unsteady steps.

"Lata, dearest, be careful," Kanti said. She held out a hand. "Take your time, Uncle Dipper will still be here when you get down."

The tiny leaves on Lata's small antlers bounced with every step, even when they slowed down so that their mother was less likely to die of a heart attack.

 _More likely Alzheimer's_ , Dipper thought, way back in the part of his mind that wouldn't shut up. _Maybe Lividon's Cancer. 103 years left on that fleshsuit, tops_.

Dipper smiled hard in the hopes that he'd stop thinking about that. "Lata! My most favorite nibling!"

"Uncle Dipper!" Lata smiled at him from where they stopped on the fifth step, open-mouthed and missing their bottom incisor. "Uncle Dipper, Uncle Dipper, are you my babysitter today?"

"Your parents thought I would be more fun—and they were right—so I blipped on by to spend some time with you!" Dipper held out his arms, and Lata jumped, wrapping their arms almost too tight around his neck. It was a little uncomfortable, but they were _mine, my Henry, here and safe and mine_ so it was okay.

"Thank heavens you're here," Reynash said from the top of the stairs. Dipper looked over Lata's shoulder to see him set a hand on the banister and begin to descend. His long braid was pulled over his shoulder, the tip of it swaying by his waist with each step. "Kanti was working herself into a panic attack before I suggested you."

"I love to see Lata, but is this—oh," Dipper said. Lata did that thing where they bit his ear really, really hard because they could and he winced. "Oh, this is an R-18 party?"

"Lata, darling, don't bite your Uncle." Reynash reached over and flicked Lata's forehead, making them giggle. "But yes, it kind of is. A couple beers would be fine, but it's our annual get-smashed-and-cry party, and we promised that we would be there. If somebody doesn't have an autowheel option and needs a ride back, we're the designateds."

"But because it's smash night, it might get a little…wild," Kanti said. She pulled her purse over her shoulder and fussed with Reynash's cropped jacket and long skirt. "Not appropriate for a five year old. We took tomorrow off work for a reason."

"Of course not," Dipper said, shifting Lata up further onto his chest. They were warm against him, and it settled awful visions of the Pines' crashing and burning, or drinking so much they had alcohol poisoning, or—

"Thank you so much again," Reynash said. He fiddled with the bottom of his braid and did his best to meet Dipper's eyes. He was more successful than usual, which told Dipper that he hadn't forgotten to put the illusion of white sclera and brown irises on for once. Reynash also had fewer bruises in his aura, more soft pinks and pale furples than rich browns and sickly greens.

They tried, so Dipper did his best to meet them in the middle.

"Again, I love seeing Lata!" Dipper grinned. "Even if they're a nibble monster."

"Rawr!" Lata said, uncomfortably close to his ear. They wriggled in his grip. "I'm a nibble monster! Fear me!"

Kanti held her fingers to her lips in a poor attempt to hide her smile. "Well, we should get going. If you can't handle the nibble monster…"

"Your number is first drawer next to the fridge because Lata keeps climbing and pulling things off of it, and you figure they can't get into the drawer but that trick's only going to work for another week before they succeed at jimmying the lock and dumping everything onto the floor in a fit of frustration."

There was an awkward beat of silence. Dipper swallowed and forgot to make his throat bob with the motion. The silence drew on. Rich brown seeped into being in Reynash's aura, tiny little pinpricks. Whoops.

"…yes, it's in the drawer by the fridge now."

Lata tugged at his ear, ran their fingers over the rounded shell of it. "Uncle Dipper, why are your ears boring?"

Dipper didn't respond, because it was then that Reynash drew Kanti closer, his hand on her waist. "I suppose that we'll have to remember the drawer for later—Kanti, you ready?"

"Oh, yes, of course, just one more thing," she said. She smiled at Dipper with the edges of her lips, and she was trying. "We'll be back anywhere from midnight to one. Lata should be in bed by ten at the very latest."

Dipper saluted. The moment he did, he saw the confusion on their faces reflected in their auras, but kept at it. "Aye aye, captain!"

Lata, a heartbeat after, copied his motion and giggled. Dipper felt his heart (metaphorically) melt, and his grin pulled wide across his face.

Reynash snickered a little, pulled a salute back even if he didn't know what it was, and pulled Kanti out the door. They blew kisses to Lata over their shoulders and Lata kissed back, wriggling against Dipper.

They stood there a moment in silence, listening to Lata's parents leave the driveway in their car. Once it was far away, Dipper felt Lata's pudgy hands on his face, and let them turn his head. He looked into Lata's eyes, dark brown and nothing like Henry's. He wondered, in a small part of him, how long Lata would last. Henry hadn't, not very long. The one before Lata had hours, and that was it.

Lata pouted. "Uncle Dipper, can you stop being boring now?"

"Is that what my monarch requests?"

They nodded once, their tiny antlers gleaming in the entryway light. "Yes. Stop being boring. I request it. I'm done doing bored stuff."

Dipper snorted, and then shook his head. The human visage fell off of him, and he felt lighter. "As you command. And your next request?"

Lata grinned, tugged at his newly pointed ear and played with one of the earring studs in the cartilage. Dipper winced at a particularly enthusiastic tug, but Lata shushed and stroked it, so he didn't admonish them.

"Can we…" Lata hummed, and then reached over Dipper's shoulder to pull the ribbon out of his hair. He let them. "Can we see animals?"

"Like a zoo? Or an aquarium?"

Lata shook their head. "No! There was a doc-yuu-pan-try on the screen and there was striped horses and giraffes and cute rat-squirrels…um, I forget their name, but they were cute! And I was eating naan and asked Mommy where the fences were and she said there weren't any and I wanna see."

"Oh, like a safari? Or a free-roam park?"

Lata paused. "Yeah!" Lata, Dipper was sure, didn't know what a safari or a free-roam park was. They had been out of the country twice with their parents, and both times that was to urban India to visit their great-grandparents.

This, of course, didn't stop him from thinking about just blipping them over to, like, where the United Congo was. What stopped him from actually going through with the idea was the fact that it was one or two in the morning over there, and he wasn't sure that was the best time to be taking a five year old into a free-roam park. They couldn't see anything anyways.

"Mm, I want to take you, but it's too late for the striped horses and giraffes and cute rat-squirrels."

Lata scowled. "Not fair," they said.

"They're asleep," Dipper countered.

"Are there others?" They asked, and ran their fingers through his hair. If he was lucky, they'd get distracted and decide to play salonist. Which Dipper was perfectly fine with, except he kind of wanted to go to a free-roam park now too.

"Well, yes."

"Are the animals asleep there too?"

Dipper opened his mouth to say yes, thought of something, and then closed it. "Well," he said. "There aren't any striped horses, or striped giraffes, or regular giraffes, but there are some cool animals, yes."

He really shouldn't.

Lata looked away from his hair and stared at him, eyes wide. "Really? What kind of animals?"

"I really shouldn't," Dipper said.

"What kiiiind?" Lata whined. They grabbed his cheeks and squished them.

"Well," he said, again. "There are kangaroos. And emus. And koalas. And stripe-backed manarans."

He could have sworn that Lata's eyes were sparkling. " _Kangaroos?_ "

"Yes, kangaroos!"

"Can we go?" Lata came even closer, their nose pressed against his. He could hear their pulse in their neck, could practically smell the blood. They were desperate, he thought. Utterly desperate to go to see these animals.

"Well," he said. "I can't take you there without a deal. Australia's far away."

Lata leaned back, eyes set in determination. "Like Uncle Ben and Aunt Tora do with you, right?"

He shouldn't encourage this. "Yes," he said. He wondered how much he could pull out of this deal, how far he could bend it in his favor. He shouldn't, but he did.

"Okay. Down, please," Lata said.

Dipper set them down on the floor, and they clambered up the stairs, pants slowly shifting color with every step. He watched them disappear into their bedroom; he could just see the ceiling from where he was, knew that the walls were green and that the light cover was shaped like a little sun and hovered an inch from the ceiling. He knew that on Lata's bedside table, there was a little figurine filled with light magic—Bentley's last birthday present after Lata had started having nightmares about being trapped, about being hurt and watching a nice lady cry on an uncomfortable-looking bed.

Henry's soul was still weak from Paloma's incarnation a millennia ago. Dipper didn't know how much that would affect Lata. Didn't know how long they had. If they would crash under the pressure of living a few years from now, if they would be caught between the grill of a transporter and a forcefield when twenty-five and on the way to a fourth date with a person who really, really got them and loved them, if they would walk down the wrong street at the wrong time while the wrong person with the wrong Sight and the wrong ideas caught sight of them and pressed their face against a cobblestone street, forty-nine and just divorced and screaming as that wrong person ripped their antlers from their body, if they would be eighty-three and fall to a brand new sickness, brutal and quick and devastating and the price for healing something like that would be a soul, a soul, and Dipper had already loved the sensation of the soul in his palms when he killed it so what would it feel like to swallow it, to feel the warmth against the muscles of his esophagus and feel it be _his his his really his really mine Henry_ —

"Uncle Dipper? Why do you look like that?"

Dipper blinked without actually blinking, and the world came back into focus around him. It took him a couple moments to actually take Lata in. "What?"

Lata's lips were thinned, their eyes wary. They were on that fifth step again, but they didn't come straight to him. "Like that. Did you go funny?"

"I," Dipper started. He pressed his palm against his forehead, closed his eyes. "Probably. You have something for me so we can go to Australia?"

Lata nodded, excitement a little dampened. They raised a giant bag of suckers. "I have this! I had to hide it from Mommy and Papa, but Aunt Tora said it was a good in—investing, so here! I want to go to see the Kangaroos."

That was a good point, Dipper thought. Kanti and Reynash wouldn't want their kid in Australia. They hadn't signed up for that.

But, Dipper thought there were four hours left until Lata absolutely had to be in bed. That was enough time to go to Australia and back. Definitely. Even if a giant bag of lollipops wasn't that close to an even deal.

"Okay," he said, "but you have to promise not to tell your parents, okay?"

Lata cheered, and held the bag out. "Kangaroos!"

"Kangaroos," Dipper agreed, and took the bag in a flash of blue. Who knew? Maybe he could track down that Acacia reincarnation he'd sensed around that area while they were there.


	4. Tommy Hangar is a Boss

**A/N:** Long time no see! I've been...super...super busy...Finishing school and moving across the globe busy haha. I'm an adult. Who let me do that.

So for anybody out there on good old ff dot net, here's a new chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Tommy Hangar is a Boss**

Dipper, when he takes Lata to Australia, fully intends on keeping them close to hand. Safe activities only! No petting dangerous animals. No jumping from rock outcropping to rock outcropping. No toddling close to that creek over there with the increasingly loud bunyip. Dipper looked up from the oddly-energized rock he was holding as Lata approached the child-eating creature.

"Lata!" He yelled, standing and brushing his human hands off on his knees. "Lata, no, no, come back, that's not safe!"

Lata turned around, put their hands on their hips. "Why? He doesn't look so bad!"

Dipper observed at the monstrous, oddly-jointed creature. It looked like it was made of cobbled-together animal parts. He could smell it, just a little, and the moistness of the scent had him thinking of the Everglades in summer. Its single, bulging eye was fixed hungrily on Lata, or rather on Henry's antlers.

If it weren't for that last, unsettling bit (the bunyip had no right), he might be inclined to agree with his charge. He stepped forward and held a hand out to Lata. "No. Come."

"We haven't even seen any kangaroos," Lata whined. They stomped their foot. The bunyip inched forward on its odd forearms, half-out of the creek. It bellowed. "You promised me kangaroos!"

Dipper glared at the bunyip. It didn't pay him any attention. He bristled; yes, Henry's antlers were fascinating, but they were _his_ and were from _him_ and also he held far more power than a pair of measly antlers, so the slight was unforgiveable. "Yes, I did, and yes, we'll find them. Lata, step away from the nightmarish child-eating monster."

The bunyip bellowed again, louder and longer, and Lata looked back at it. They paused, brought up one hand to rub at the base of one of their antlers. Good, Dipper thought. Somebody here was finally rightfully worried about the situation. He supposed it couldn't be helped; the bunyip seemed too stupid to figure out that there was a bigger fish on this dry land.

But Lata didn't move. The bunyip wriggled a foot closer. Dipper readied himself to bare his teeth in a nasty snarl.

"Fuckin' hell! You cunt, what're you pissfarting around here with that ankle biter?"

Dipper turned around. He blinked at the newcomer, and then grinned, the issue of the bunyip momentarily set aside at the wonder in front of him. "Hello!"

The woman in front of him, in typical park-ranger tans, stared at him like he'd grown three more heads and was still only in possession of about five collective brain cells. Her hair was dark, pulled back into a short ponytail, and there was a bit of stubble on her chin. Dipper was glad it wasn't red, or curly, but he also wished Acacia's reincarnation looked just a little more like her.

Acacia's reincarnation looked over his shoulder, cursed, and pushed him out of the way. Dipper stepped back, dry grass splintering under his shoes, and watched her unholster a long-distance stunning baton.

"Kiddiwink," she said, holding a hand out to Lata, "come stand behind me, sweetheart."

Lata looked back at the bunyip, which had crept closer in the time Dipper was lost staring at his old niece. His new nibling—old brother, or whatever, keeping things straight was so hard—made a noise in the back of their throat, and finally tried to shuffle away from the bunyip. The monster's eyelid drew back even more, its pupil dilated, and then it was rushing forward faster than anything with four joints in its back legs and none in its front should be allowed to.

Lata's shrill shriek rose above the bunyip's warbling roar. Dipper felt a quick flash of fear, and then a stronger thrum of anger for being afraid of such an insignificant creature. But even as he made to drop his human guise he remembered Acacia, before him, and how demons with children were never good combinations to human beings. He hesitated.

In that moment of hesitation, Acacia whipped the stun baton forward. Runes flared up along its side in solid oranges, and then Dipper felt the energy flung at the charging bunyip. It collided with the creature, invisible except for the clear effects it had on the monster. The bunyip screeched, like stone on stone, and scrambled back towards the safety of the water. It didn't retreat further though, its eye glaring at them from above the surface.

Lata clutched at Acacia's pants, shaking, in tears.

"Piss off, fuckstain," Acacia pulled a charmed stone out of her pocket and threw it at the bunyip. The moment the stone plinked into the water, the bunyip let out a hiss like radio static and disappeared under the surface. Dipper watched it swim away. Pride and dissatisfaction warred in him before they were summarily cast aside in favor of bemusement when Acacia stuck one finger right between his eyes.

"You!" she barked. "What the pissfuck were you thinking, you rabid-dog footracer?"

"I…" Dipper stared cross-eyed at the finger in front of him. The image didn't double, and neither did the aura, bright orange with fury. Instead, he could see the individual ridges in the skin, the regressing cuticle and a small nick at the edge of Acacia's fingernail. "They wanted to see the kangaroos. So. I brought them. To see the kangaroos. Where are they, anyways? Don't you have kangaroos here?"

"You dimwit, have you been living belly-down, head-to-arse in a cave?" Acacia jabbed the finger between his eyes. Dipper had to try very, very hard to not cross his eyes further, because he had been informed that it was Very Creepy and Not Human and he would like Lata to remain in his custody until they saw some kangaroos and blipped out, thank you very much.

"No," Lata said. Then, after a pause, they asked, "What's an arse? Is it an animal? A really small one?"

"No," Dipper said. "It means your butt."

"Oooh." Lata shifted their weight and looked up at Acacia. They reached out and held their hand over Acacia's butt. "Arse."

Acacia picked Lata up. Maybe it was to dissuade any more butt-talk. "Now that that's out of the way, what the fuck are you doing here with a minor and without an arse-minder?"

"Again, we wanted to see kangaroos?" Dipper eyed Acacia's grip on Lata and wondered how easy it would be to get his nibling-brother-friend back from his other nibling. "They were supposed to be here?"

"No they fucken're not," Acacia said. She shifted Lata in her arms. "Because there's been a cupgriffin-coupling load of nasties popping up here! They took out a quarter of our herd sizes before we got all the nonviolents out. It's not like it's news fresh in the fuckin pot!"

"We don't live here."

Acacia lifted one eyebrow. "And what about TV?"

Dipper had not been paying attention to the news. When did he need to? If anybody thought it'd be important, they'd tell him. And maybe he would listen. Possibly even remember. "I don't get TV," he said.

"We do!" Lata said. Dipper squinted his eyes at them in a signal to shut up, but they didn't. "I watch Magical Mumblemuffin every Friday, and Plastisaurus's Featherfriends on Tuesdays. And then there's Sailor Sun: Daylight Knight-maidens on Saturdays, and sometimes Daddy lets me watch his police show with him. My favorite's the Wardress. She kicks butt." Lata paused, and tilted her head. "She kicks arse?"

Acacia opened her mouth to ask a question, but a rustle in the tall grass several feet away stopped her. She moved her suspicious gaze from Dipper to the grass, and Dipper took the moment to widen his eyes meaningfully at Lata, seeing as squinting hadn't worked. Lata looked back at him, completely unaware of the brainwaves he was trying to send them. Dipper wished that Lata had telepathic abilities, like that reincarnation a few lives before he had to eat his brother's soul. He didn't remember much of then, coming off the razor edge of ferality, but he did remember many mental conversations. Maybe tinged with panic. Or something. Probably. He hadn't been in a super great place, then. At least Bentley hadn't been—well, if Dipper was honest with himself (which he didn't really want to be), that Henry's situation had only been marginally better than Bentley's, not worse. The Mizar Misunderstanding kind of tipped the scales there. Fucking Twin Souls.

"Let's have this convo in a better fuckin pit than this infested portapotty dump." Acacia shifted Lata to her back. "I don't usually flap like a thimble-warbler fairy when the sun gets shaded, but I'm real fucken interested in why a dude who can't be trusted to wipe his own ass got this anklebiter and don't even live in the same house."

Dipper almost groaned out loud. The only thing stopping him was the thought of having to explain to Lata's parents why they had gone to Australia. Or why somebody had reported Alcor the Dreambender snatching a kid out of their arms and vanishing. "I'm their uncle," he said.

"Really," Acacia drawled. Lurid shades of blue and Nk'leka swirled through her aura. Dipper wanted to label them amusement, but he really wasn't sure.

As they cut through a slightly overgrown patch of vegetation, Acacia absentmindedly kicked a particularly nasty looking two-headed mole-like creature out of the way. It tumbled into the underbrush, spraying acid potent enough to melt through wood and leaf. Dipper hummed in interest, but didn't root out the others he could feel just meters away to see if they all did the funny acid thing.

"Yeah!" Lata said, their chubby arms locked neatly around Acacia's neck. Acacia, like a boss, didn't blink an eye at nearly getting her windpipes crushed. Dipper rubbed at his throat subconsciously as Acacia stepped around him. "He's my uncle! He's fun. Can you really touch your arse with your head, Uncle Dipper?"

Yes. "No," he said, because he was a Good and Responsible Human Being with a Spine that wasn't made of rubber. "Humans can't do that."

"Contortionists can," Acacia said, and fuck Dipper had forgotten about them, goddammit he was blowing his human cover, he just knew it. Dipper eyed Acacia's back and wondered how fast he'd need to be to get the jump on her. Anything that could withstand toddler windpipe grip was a foe to be wary of. Not that he wanted Acacia to be his foe.

"Oh, right," he said, with an awkward laugh. "But. I can't do that." Definitely could. "Most humans can't?"

"You'd be surprised," Acacia muttered. They stepped down from the short hillside to the path carved into the side of it. Dipper followed, careful to make sure his footsteps were just heavy enough to leave prints in the dusty earth.

"I want to be a contortionist," Lata said. "I want to touch my arse with my head."

Acacia patted Lata's shin. Dipper hurried up to walk side by side with them both. "Sweetheart, you go for it. I hope that's the only way you pull that star down to you."

"What's your name, anyways?" Dipper asked, because Bentley was no more like Mabel than Lata was like Henry. And, well, maybe changing the subject would be better. He tilted his head towards Acacia.

"Tommy Hangar," She said without missing a beat. "Yours?"

"Tyrone Pines," Dipper said.

Acacia—Tommy—narrowed her eyes at him, and didn't flinch when Lata started tugging on her ear. Her aura, which had been lightening to pale pinks and lime-fruit green even with the amusement?blues, started to deepen into bright orange again. "I thought your name was Uncle Dipper."

"Well, yes," he drawled. "Haven't you heard of ni—I mean, it's my nickname. I'm—an astrologist," he said, only knowing about astrology in that dim, suppressed way he knew everything.

"Stars, huh," Tommy said. Her aura cleared up and began dancing with those amusement colors. Dipper knew they were amusement because he caught just a hint of a grin on her face. "I guess it explains why a fuckwit like you don't know anything about shit going on down here. Your head is in the clouds, like Filara's."

"Above," Dipper said, unable to stop himself. "Stars are above the clouds, not in them."

Tommy snorted and looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. She went down the short set of rough stairs at the same time. Dipper could swear that was a no-go in the Parenting Book. A parenting book. Something.

"Stars in clouds would look so cool!" Lata said, pausing in their attempt to elongate Tommy's earlobes. "Why aren't there stars in clouds? And who's Filara?"

Dipper was distracted by trying to go down the set of steps in a manner that was Very Human, and didn't answer right away. Instead, Tommy beat him to it.

"Because stars are very far away, and if they weren't, they would be too hot and too big to be in the clouds. Filara's my wife. And she would agree with you, even if she knows the science is impossible."

"What about you?" Lata asked.

"Me?" Tommy laughed. A light breeze caught Lata's hair and blew it into Tommy's face. "Cute idea, but I'm glad they're so fuckin far away. One sun is hot efuckingnough."

Dipper was only barely able to stop himself from tripping, caught up in the feeling of heat against his front, his side, slowly baking alive and unable to move from the hospital bed because his spine was broken and they hadn't fixed it yet, had to work around the other breaks over the years from wrangling with nasty supernaturals. He was sixty-three, except. Except. Except he wasn't him, he was her, she was Tommy and she ached and ached because Filara was expecting her home, they were supposed to go out and—

"Dipshit, you okay back there?"

He nearly flinched. Suddenly, he just wanted to be gone. He didn't want to reconnect with somebody who didn't know him, who would hate him, who he knew would go up in literal flames. He knew, he knew, he knew.

Dipper opened his eyes, and met Lata's gaze. Lips pressed, like their mother's. Eyes wide, unsure. In the breeze, the leaves on their tiny, underdeveloped antlers bobbed. Up, down, up, down. Dipper remembered so many leaves on so many antlers. He could only place a few to their respective Henry's faces.

Dipper closed his eyes. Took a breath, let it out and pushed fire and pain as far down as he could. "I'm fine. Just a muscle spasm."

He smiled, not too wide and not too sharp, and did not meet Acacia's eyes the rest of the way to the Kangaroos. As soon as he had politely refused her offer for homemade lunch and information for 'dipsitting numbskulls with kids like you,' and as soon as Lata had their eyeful of Kangaroos, he blipped them fifteen hours back. Then he waited until Lata's parents got home, and vanished.

Dipper didn't think he was going back to Australia any time soon.

Dipper didn't think he was going back _anywhere_ any time soon.

* * *

Bentley thumbed the clock display on his desk and watched it pop up. He was not young enough to fold his arms on his desk and put his head down, but he really, really wanted to. Three more mind-numbing hours of reviewing theory and re-structuring the plan the Thinktank department wanted him to implement was not exactly how Bentley wanted to spend his time.

"Is…is it right now?"

He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the poor intern the idiots up at Thinktank had playing courier. Ever since Mahnji left the department, Thinktank had been sending him worse and worse schematics, as evidenced by the fact this was the sixth time the intern had visited him that week. It was Tuesday.

"No," he said. He told himself not to take it out on the intern. Poor Sally didn't deserve his ire; zhe had been perfectly polite and apologetic the entire time. "No, it isn't, but I couldn't tell you exactly where or why without looking it up myself."

"I'm so sorry," zhe said, fidgeting with the bottom of zhir jacket with six-fingered hands. "I can take it back?"

"No, it's all right," Bentley said. He ignored the fact that there were two half-finished in-depth projects currently waiting on his work pad. "I'll fix it up and send it back. When do you get off work?"

"Um," Sally said. "I'm supposed to get off at six."

"Then if you could come around five, I should have it done by then," he said. He hated the words even as they left his mouth, but figured that staying an extra hour wouldn't hurt with how busy Torako had been lately, with how absent Dipper had been. "I'm out the door after that, though, so their input can wait until tomorrow." Tomorrow, after he'd spent the night drawing up rough schematics that actually worked, instead of the scattered-fishbone scratchmarks they dared call a working proof.

"Okay," Sally said. Zhe rubbed zhir long thumbs over zhir knuckles. "I'll…go now?"

"Of course," Bentley said. "Thank you for bringing these to me, and for your patience."

Sally let out a weak laugh and waved. Zhir four feet made hardly a sound on the floor as zhe left. Bentley waited until the door had shut before he slowly got to his feet and touched the tips of his fingers to the window. With a slow, downwards swipe, the window opacity lowered until he could just see the city outside.

Having his own office was nice. It meant that when he really needed to, he could curl up under the desk and breathe a little. Being good at his job—being one of the best thinkers in the industry, actually—had won him his own space, but it also meant that the stress and responsibility was much higher. Bentley wasn't even thirty yet, but he kept finding white hairs growing in at the sides of his head. Bentley reached up a hand and touched his own hair, watched what he could see of his reflection in the window.

His father's face stared back at him.

There were subtle differences, of course—Bentley had a rounder face, his nose was wider, his eyes bigger and his ears had detached lobes—but Bentley really knew it was him because of the hair: two-toned, shaggy and starting to grow over his eyes. It wasn't short, not like Philip's. Bentley didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse.

Bentley closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the glass. Sigil formulas danced behind his eyelids, shifting and changing shape. What Thinktank wanted was something that could work in tandem with concealment wards. Easier said than done; sigils didn't really like playing with other magics. Sigilists had to beat around the bush in order to bend the sigils to a purpose like working with wards. When Ben remembered the schematics Thinktank had sent him, he had to admit—if only to himself—that they _had_ made a good attempt at it. It was fairly creative, actually. But all the same, Bentley knew deep in his gut that their current schematics were likelier to tear vicious, angry holes in the wards than support foreign magic.

Knowing it would fail was one thing. Figuring out the fix was another entirely.

His phone chimed on the desk. It wasn't Torako's muted guitar riff unfortunately, but it also wasn't his coworker dove-croon tone, which made it twice as safe a distraction to look at. Bentley opened his eyes and went to check the handheld.

Meung-soo's name stared up at him. Bentley smiled a little to himself as he swiped to access the message.

 _Bentley,_ it said. He sat down, sigil schematics out of mind for the moment. _As you know, I enjoyed lunch with you this past Saturday, and I was hoping you might be available for dinner tonight. Perhaps with your partners, if they have the time? I was told there was an excellent Italian place near my hotel. Maybe around 6?_

Bentley hummed, and turned his chair in a circle. He wanted to, but wasn't about to leave Torako high and dry for dinner unless she was alright without company that night. There wasn't much by the way of leftovers in the fridge, after all, and it had gotten a bit lonely without Dipper in the apartment—he wasn't about to subject Torako to that, not after he'd volunteered to make dinner.

So, instead of replying to his Aunt—he was at work, he could say he didn't see the message immediately—he tapped the right corner of the phone twice to call Torako. She picked up on the second-to-last ring.

"Ben? What's wrong?"

"Hey Tora, Meung-soo texted with an offer to go to dinner around 6, if you're free then?"

Torako let out a deep breath. The static dissolved in the space between the speaker and his ear so that all he heard was its fuzzy echoes, softened and quiet. "Stars, Ben, I'd love that, but I don't think I'll get out of here any time soon."

Ben frowned. He pushed the pads to the side of his desk and leaned on the clearest surface. "Tora? You sound really tired."

"Haha," she said. Her tone became lighter, and if Ben hadn't known her for almost half his life, he wouldn't have become suspicious. "Yeah, it's pretty tense around here. Really busy. I'll be okay though! You should go and spend time with your aunt."

"Tora, it's okay, I can spend time with her later. What do you want for dinner? I'll go out and pick stuff up if I need to."

"Ben." There was a thump on Tora's end. "Ben. Darling. Friendo. Buddy. What did we talk about last week?"

Bentley honestly couldn't remember. "I don't know?"

"Family. You reconnecting with them. And you were so happy after your lunch with her, so I don't see why you should skip out on dinner. She's only here for what, a few more days?"

"End of the week," Bentley said. "She leaves Saturday."

"Exactly," Torako said. "A few more days. Go have dinner! If you're really worried, you can bring me back a serving of whatever you have. Where are you going, anyways?"

"Italian, near her hotel," Bentley said. "I think it's a place on West side?"

"Oooh, that place! Yeah, bring me back whatever, whenever. If you're not back by the time I am—which, hah, unlikely—I'll just stuff my face with vegetables or something. Maybe some crackers." There was a suspicious pause. "Or something."

"…you have Moffios in the house, don't you."

"Something!" Torako said. "Not Moffios!"

Bentley sighed. "Well, I suppose that if you went out and got them, like the adult you are, I can't stop you from eating them. Even if I want to. You sure you don't want me to come back and cook?"

"No! And well, maybe Moffios will be involved," Torako said. Bentley _knew_ it. If he were younger and had less control over his pettier characteristics, he would absolutely find and destroy them. With prejudice. "But, point is: I will feed myself if you come home later. If you come home earlier, you will bring me food. Okay?"

"You're sure?" Bentley traced a note between the forcefields of his desk. "Positive?"

"Yes, Ben. Go. Talk with your aunt. Eat good food. Bring me good food. I will eat it eventually, if not tonight. Besides, won't you be lonely waiting around for me? Dip's not been back in a couple days."

"I mean. I guess I would be." Bentley made a mental note to summon Dip back if he was gone beyond Friday. He could be in trouble, or sad, or something; even powerful forces of the supernatural like Dipper weren't without their weaknesses. "But like. Moffios. Do I really want to leave you with just those in the house to eat."

"Only maybe Moffios!" Torako said. "Not definitely Moffios! And even if, hypothetically, there were Moffios, I am an Adult and will eat Something Healthy with my Delicious Breakfast Cereals."

"You can't call Moffios cereal," Bentley said. "They tarnish the good name of cereal if you do."

"You tarnish the good name of cereal," Torako muttered. Then, louder, she said, "Okay, so you go out to dinner, I'll suffer here at my intern job which is going to pay me overtime if it's the last thing I accomplish, and we'll meet up tonight even if it's me crawling into bed and shoving my elbow in your face."

Bentley was intimately familiar with Torako's elbows. It's part of why he liked being little spoon. "Okay, if you're alright with that, then I'm good. Good luck at work."

"You too. And have fun with your Aunt! I'm really happy you're getting to know her, and that she's not awful."

Bentley laughed. "What, that's as high as you'll go for her? She's not nice? Good? Decent?"

"I haven't even met her!" Torako whined. "It's called reserving judgment. Now, I really have to go, so—"

"Alright, love you lots. Don't stick around too long."

"Love you too, dork. Later!" Torako hung up. Bentley closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and tried to hold onto the echoes of her voice for as long as he could.

But, eventually, he couldn't ignore the text or his work any longer. So he sent a reply to his Aunt— _Unfortunately neither of my partners can come, but I can meet you at six, if that's alright with you!—_ and pulled the most recent datapad toward him. He imported the document into his note-taking software, and began to tear Thinktank's proposition apart.

* * *

"—and really, when you put sigils with other forms of magic," Bentley found himself saying over dinner, "you avoid nature sigils as much as possible. Especially elemental ones, like fire, or water. That's a pretty basic and steadfast rule! There are a few exceptions, but Thinktank should know better than to try to anchor their protection formulas with 'earth,' because all that's going to happen is chaos and a lawsuit. Or our building going down when my team tests the sigils."

Meung-soo chuckled, and propped her chin on her palm. A single silver hoop slid down from her wrist with the motion until it rest halfway down the soft swell of her forearm. It had some kind of ward embossed into the metal, but Bentley hadn't yet asked what its purpose was. Maybe it was to subtly alter the appearance of her arms and disguise liver spots. Perhaps it was to detect foods she was allergic to and warn her in advance. Maybe she had a poor constitution and the bracelet supported her compromised immune system. He hadn't noticed wards on the bracelets she wore last time, but he wasn't paying attention either. Wards weren't really his thing, though he was learning.

There was so much he didn't know about his aunt. There was so much, he was realizing, that he was excited to learn about her.

"Earth seems pretty stable to me, though," she said. "Shielding wards often invoke earth-related words. Why can't sigils?"

"Because natural sigils are too raw," Bentley said. "They're not refined enough. That kind of power, paired with sigils' tendency to attack other magics they're put with, is a bad combination. Sigils are like—um, this isn't perfect, but they're like white cells."

Meung-soo's eyebrows rose. "So other magics are sicknesses? Viruses?"

"Agh, no," Bentley said. He pushed his plate of half-eaten lasagna out of the way. "Maybe it would be better to say that sigils see themselves as white cells, in that everything else is there to get in their way or get on top."

"Are sigils sentient?"

Bentley opened his mouth to answer no, then closed it and leaned back in his chair. He looked up at their slowly spinning table-light, warm-toned but somewhat dim. "I mean, there's not been a lot of research. And people don't go into sigils as much because they're hard, and frustrating to work with in an age where combining magics is preferable to sticking to one, and they're inconvenient because of needing sentient energy. But because of the SE, maybe some of the intent lingers in the sigils? Maybe they become a little sentient? I don't know, it's not really my area."

Meung-soo nodded and took a bite of her shrimp fettuccini. Bentley saw her tapping her fork and waits for her to finish.

"So sigils might have some level of sentience, but nobody knows. And they don't play will with other magics. So how does your phone work?"

Bentley blinked. "My phone?"

"You said it was warded," Meung-soo said. "But I saw sigils on the outside rim, so that must mean they're working together?"

"Ah, no, sorry," Bentley said. "I meant warded as in protected. It's all sigilwork. More complicated than the stuff I had at school, but it's been a decade and this is for heavier duty work." Bentley shifted the phone just a bit further away from his plate. Sigil-warded it may be, but it was not impervious to food or water.

"Oh, I see," Meung-soo said. She smiled. "There's some overlap with other magics, then, even if sigils hates them?"

Bentley frowned, trying to figure out where she'd come to that conclusion. "I mean, there's overlap between all magics, but why do you say that?"

"The use of warded, even if just as a word," Meung-soo said, holding up a hand and beginning to pull down fingers in count. "Then you said that the sigil for fire is the same as the alchemical symbol, which is a different branch of magic. And some of the sigils I was able to see on your phone looked a lot like words, like wards use."

"Yeah, you're right. That's really observant of you," Bentley said. He relaxed into a bit of a slouch and smiled back. "You're really smart. Dad said my mom was really smart too; is it just a family thing?"

Meung-soo's smile dimmed a little, turned a tiny bit bitter and soft with sorrow. There was a burst of laughter from the group two tables down, harsh in the sudden silence between Bentley and his aunt. A server passed behind Meung-soo, their elbow clipping the back of her chair, but she didn't move even when the server apologized quickly.

"I'm sorry," Bentley hurried to say. "You don't have to answer that. We can change the subject."

"No, it's fine. I'm sure that…that you'd like to know more about Soo-jan. Susan." Meung-soo pushed some of her noodles around. "Yes, she was smart. So smart. More smart with her body, smart in doing, than she was book-smart, but she was a bit of that, too."

Bentley remained silent. He watched Meung-soo's eyes, which suddenly looked so tired, watched the way her left hand trembled. He wanted to tell her it was okay not to continue, but it wouldn't come out. The air around them was suddenly so heavy.

"I was the book-smart one, but she was the one who practiced until she remembered like it was second nature. When I was ten, she could outclimb me and beat me in karuta matches because she remembered the best spots to put her weight, and she remembered the words to the poems better than I did. When we were older, she always took the lead on vacations and dragged me along to see new things. You're not her, but…you remind me of her, sometimes. You remind me of Philip, too, but Soo-jan was far more adventurous."

If there wasn't that quiet tension in the air, Bentley would have laughed self-depreciatingly. "Adventurous?"

Meung-soo finally looked him in the eye. Her mouth quirked up in a smile. "You went to school and then to work in another country with only one other friend. You decided to enter a field that wasn't very viable at the time, and are at the top of your field. Didn't your work send you abroad several times already? It said so on the website."

"Uh," Bentley said, because that really wasn't so special. Honestly. And then he registered what she heard, and asked, "Website? You looked me up?"

Meung-soo flushed. "I. Um. I was. Yes."

"You…stalked me online?" Bentley had a hard time wrapping his head around this. He was barely present on social media. He had forgotten that the company had a website. He hadn't even known they featured articles about their employees, though the fact rubbed him as somewhat familiar.

She went darker and started to fiddle with the napkin. "I. Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, I just wanted to know—"

"No, no, it's fine!" Bentley said, holding up his hands. "You're fine, I just wasn't expecting it. I'm not really online much?"

Meung-soo laughed, a little awkwardly. "I suppose that's true, yes. I'm not really either. Again, Soo-jan was more adventurous. Outgoing."

Bentley had never been outgoing in his life. Well, maybe when he was a very young child, but aside from that, outgoing had been firmly in Torako's playing field. He wondered if Meung-soo seeing her sister in him was just wishful thinking.

His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Meung-soo softened from stiff embarrassment. "I'm not trying to say you are Soo-jan. Or your father—I remember him being rather vivacious. You're just familiar, sometimes. It's okay to be your own person, though."

"Okay." Bentley dropped his hands into his lap, then set them up above the table surface as manners demanded. "I. Um. I don't think much can top Mom's job, anyways."

Meung-soo laughs, all signs of embarrassment gone. "Oh, Soo-jan's job. Our parents were so mad at her! Ma wanted her to go into something safer, Mama wanted her to marry and stay at home, and Anjan said that anything was fine except for that. Even being a self-employed cult-hunter was better than going to Dip in California, of all places!"

Bentley supposed he understood the aversion. Out west, the storms were unpredictable—both natural and magical. The oceans were still dangerous, even two millennia after Alcor tore the coast into pieces, cutting a new plate into the Earth's crust. It was just starting to breach the surface of the ocean in volcanic islands. Magically, supernaturally-charged islands, that nobody even wanted to touch yet.

"She did do a lot of exploring in what time she had, though," Bentley said. "And Dad said she stopped when she found out she was pregnant with me."

"At four months," Meung-soo said. "She barely showed, even after that. That made our parents mad at her too."

Bentley knew his maternal grandparents hadn't liked him while they were alive, but this made it seem like they didn't like his mother either. He frowned, and took the last bite of his pasta to stop himself from asking if they ended up hating his mother.

"But I remember her sending pictures of you when you were born," Meung-soo said. She had an absent smile on her face, and was looking out the window beside them. It was showing the Italian Alps, in real time. "I can't have children, and never wanted to, but in that moment I almost wished I could." She looked at him, and that smile was back on her face, both soft with memory and sharp with bitterness. There was another burst of laughter from the table two groups down. "You were absolutely precious."

Bentley had finished chewing his food. It was all gone, even the complimentary bread in the basket between himself and his aunt, so he didn't have anything to occupy his mouth when he said, "Why didn't you ever visit, or send messages?"

Meung-soo blinked. The bittersweet expression washed off her face, like dirt on the streets and houses after a magical torrent of rain. "What?"

"Nevermind," Bentley said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask that."

Meung-soo stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time. She frowned, and looked away. "No, it's. I. I didn't. I'm sorry, it's complicated."

Bentley watched her, and waited for the rest of the answer. She took a long, long time to give it, and in that time Bentley found himself wishing that the laughing table would shut up.

"After your mother died," Meung-soo said, "your father and I got in a big fight. We…didn't see eye to eye on where Soo-jan's memorial should be. Didn't see eye-to-eye on where you should be raised. Didn't see eye-to-eye on his job. And they were stupid, petty fights all wrapped up into one, and I was wrong about many things, but it stopped us from reconciling. We said awful things to one another."

Bentley opened his mouth and asked another awful question. "Did you want him to die?"

Meung-soo looked up at him, eyes wide and startled. "No!" She said. "No, I never did. I was shocked when I heard he died. Why would you think…"

Bentley shrugged. "My father wasn't well known, or highly-regarded. I had one person come to the funeral that hated him, and wouldn't even pretend at being sorry." He swallowed the grief and anger down, and didn't look at Meung-soo. "They brought me orange lilies at my father's funeral, and made me accept them."

Meung-soo didn't speak for a while. Bentley was finding it harder and harder to keep the tears at bay, staring at the sauce on his plate, the oil glinting in the light overhead.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I…I didn't know that. I'm so, so sorry."

They were both quiet again, Philip's death, Soo-jan's death hanging over them. Bentley closed his eyes and wished he could call Torako, or summon Dipper, and have them come at once to hold him.

Meung-soo broke the silence. "Hey. Do you—sometimes, when I think of Soo-jan and it hurts too much, I eat something chocolate and remember how much it made her smile. Dessert sound good?"

Bentley took a deep breath and looked up at Meung-soo. She looked just as tired as he felt. He wondered, then, if he would be that way about his father two decades in the future. He hoped he wasn't. He hoped he was, too. He didn't know what he hoped.

"Sure," he managed. "Dad liked berries."

They ordered dessert.

* * *

Torako should have expected it. She'd been up early and out of work late. The day had been all about running around town, contacting apartment managers in person to ask them to keep an eye out for tenants who hadn't left their apartments. It had been a lot of deskwork, looking through odd cases from the hospitals with the other two interns in hopes that the summoned demon has finally claimed a victim. There should have been a victim. Alû worked fast, there should have been something, and there was this low undercurrent of 'currently freaking the hell out' at the station that had everybody tense and easy to offend. Mellie, who Tora got along with fairly well usually, burst into tears when Torako snapped about working faster, even though Torako knew Mellie found numbers easier to read than letters and that Mellie was going as fast as she could. Torako still felt like a jerk, even though she'd immediately apologized and taken Mellie to the break room to calm down.

But nothing had happened. Nothing was happening. And Torako felt the pressure of being a demonologist, especially that of being a demonologist intern; everybody expected her to magically find the symptoms that connected the patient to the crime. It just wasn't happening yet. Which meant everybody kept staring at her more and more expectantly, and Torako was going absolutely insane. She should have taken off to have dinner with Bentley and Meung-soo, just to unwind a bit. Instead, though, she'd stayed at the office, taking every call about every new admitted patient with coma-like or paralysis-like symptoms that ultimately ended in nothing. Nothing, nothing, _nothing_. Not even the delicious spaghetti dinner Bentley brought back had helped with the frustration and exhaustion.

So when Torako half woke up in the middle of the night, and she heard Momma Mai in the doorway asking her where she put the butter, where the butter was put, because Momma Mai needed to make pancakes with the butter so Torako, just tell her where the butter is—Torako thought _Oh fuck, not this again_ , and tried to move.

As expected, she couldn't. Her hands were dead weight on the blankets, her arm lead over her side, her eyes stuck shut under a force. Opening them felt like she was playing at Atlas lifting the world, except she's not Atlas—thank fuck, because she's not keen on getting her stomach pecked out. Or whatever the legend says.

Torako breathed, and focused on breathing harsher, and harsher, until she was letting out little whines. She was scared, a little, but she's been having sleep paralysis since she went demon-hunting slash cult-bashing that one year between undergrad and grad. So honestly, it's more frustrating now that she knew what was happening. There was a twinge of unease at the empty space at her back where Dipper usually was, though. He wasn't behind her to laugh, then offer to eat the paralysis even though it apparently tastes awful. Like feet bathed in vinegar and then mixed with the cloves the dentist stuffs in your mouth when you get dry socket.

Bentley stirred in front of her. _Thank the world_ , Torako thought. Then he woke up, turned around, and must have seen her still and almost hyperventilating because she felt the bed shake with the force of him sitting up. "Torako?!"

She didn't know why he was so panicked. She wished she could see his face. He touched it, held her cheeks in his hands, but she couldn't move. Not a finger, not even her mouth—just her breath, faster and harsher in the pursuit of waking up.

"Fuck, Torako, did—fuck, what was the name of that demon? Oh my god, I'm calling Dipper, it can't have you it can't _have_ you!"

Torako was confused for approximately two and three-quarters of a second. Then she remembered her case, and how she'd warned Bentley that comas and paralysis might not be just comas and paralysis, and she panics.

In a burst of sheer will, she wrenched her eyes open and let out a shuddering, uncontrollable sob that's less emotion and more physical response.

Bentley stared at her, wide-eyed and with tears just starting to form. For a long moment, she stared into the whites of his eyes in the dark, and then Bentley clapped twice to turn the nightlight on. He pulled her up into his arms and started to cry into her neck.

Wordlessly, she folded her arms around him and rubbed up and down his back. He blubbered things about how scared he was, how she was never allowed to scare him like that again, how he would hunt down that demon himself even though he'd never been too active about the whole Cult-Smashing-Mizar schtick before. She hummed and nodded and focused on being alive and present for Bentley.

Maybe it should have been the other way around. Maybe he should have been the one comforting her. But he had, so many times in the past, and she knew from her end that she would be okay—he didn't. He didn't. And if Torako had woken up to Bentley, whining in bed and not moving a single muscle, her heart would have been in her throat within miliseconds.

"Do you want to call Dipper?" She asked at length, when Bentley had calmed down a little and was breathing steadier. Bentley pressed his face further into her neck.

"I don't think so," he murmured, fingers looser in the folds of her sleep shirt. It's that old Sugar Daddy one, from college. Torako wonders if she should make them all new ones. Maybe some cool sunglasses to go with them. "He—he might be busy. I wanted to call him on Friday, if he hadn't been back home by then."

"Fair enough," Torako whispered. "But if it happens again, could you? It's so much easier when he eats them."

Bentley didn't ask what she'd give him, or what he'd give Dipper on her behalf. Dipper loves Moffios almost as much as Torako does. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

They held each other for another five, ten minutes, before exhaustion pulled them under again. Torako fought the oncoming fits of paralysis, brought about by overexhaustion, until she wasn't thinking or fighting anymore.

Neither of them were awake when Alcor the Dreambender blipped into the room, summoned by Bentley's spike of fear. He looked at them for a long time, and then plucked a thin, rapidly growing sprout of paralysis from the space just above Torako's ear. He ate it.

His impassive features twisted into a open-mouthed look of revulsion. "God that's gross," he whispered out loud. "Gross gross gross gross gross. Ew. No. Blech. Where's my candy."

He pet at his tongue. Underneath him, Bentley and Torako slept, tense, exhausted, and worried. Alcor looked at them one last time, looked at the space behind Torako's back, and wanted. Then he thought about Acacia burning, about elderly Bentley holding elderly Torako's hand in the face of a magical hurricane and being swept away by the torrential floods, about young Bentley wasting away in a bright white space, about middle-aged Torako with her throat slit in the center of a circle she had almost broken up, about their graves in a thousand different forms in a hundred different places, and he couldn't.

Dipper closed his eyes, and blipped away.


	5. Olla Summons a Tutor

**A/N:** HEY HEADS UP

At the end of the chapter, there is a very short section with non-consensual kissing. This is a dream. It doesn't actually happen to the character in question. BUT it still happens and you need to be aware of that.

Enjoy. Also, please never expect me to update this quickly again because this was a miracle.

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Olla Summons a Tutor**

Wednesday went by in the same rush of slow-cook tension as the day before it. Torako, exhausted from her bout of sleep paralysis the night before, and Bentley, exhausted by the idea of her targeted by the very demon she's hunting, decided to take Thursday afternoon off. Bentley invited Meung-soo over for dinner, reasoning that it was less expensive anyways. Meung-soo agreed and was apparently excited enough to send Bentley a virtual sticker. He gushed over it for ages. Torako agreed to be on call for the evening in exchange for not having to physically be at the police station. Most of it was a waiting game at that point, and Torako would rather be called in when she was needed rather than sit around and do nothing. The magical creature disappearances had died down after they'd been connected to the cultists, the robbery at the magitech appliance store had been labeled a dead end, and nobody was turning up incapable of moving. Torako worried, of course—why did cultists need that many magical creatures? Why was the demon taking so long to strike? Were they summoning more demons?—but there was honestly nothing to do about it.

Which is why, at 15:22, she was pushing a cart along at the closest Mizzle Twizzle Market and pulling things off the highest shelves for Bentley. For example, a package of assorted specialty fruits from the Californian Island Federation that he needed for dessert.

"Why do they insist on putting that stuff up high, anyways?" Bentley groused, ticking the fruits off their shopping list on his phone. "It's so stupid."

"Not priority for shoppers," Torako said. "Or they hate short people." She put the bag in the cart and leaned against the shelf. "What's next?"

Bentley muttered to himself for a moment before biting his lip. "I have a bunch of veg on the list next, and after that is fish, but I could swear there was something else before we got there. Bread? No, not bread."

"Were we just shopping for tonight or for later as well?" Torako bent over and looked at the list from above. She wasn't a champion at upside-down reading, but she was pretty proficient.

"I was only thinking tonight," Bentley said, moving out of the way of another shopper and their two rambunctious children. "But I just can't think of what other fruit we'd need for dinner…"

Torako scrolled down the list with her forefinger and let out a sound of realization at the same time Bentley did. Nearly in tandem, they said, "The pineapple!"

"Canned or fresh, though?" Torako said.

"Canned, of course," Bentley said, as somebody who'd grown up in a household with a stricter budget. "Superior to fresh in taste."

"But in terms of nutrient value, isn't fresh better?" Torako asked. She grinned at him. "You know, for somebody who always reminds me about how awful Moffios are for you…"

Bentley groaned and pushed the cart into the vegetable section. "Skies above, Tora, the Hellsugar is in a completely other league. Don't even compare them."

Torako ruffled his hair, then reached around him to snag a package of long-stemmed mushrooms from the aisle display. She tossed them into the cart. "Okay, okay, I won't. So if we're just shopping for tonight, I'm going to guess we aren't going to pick up some sugary stuff for our buddy Dip? Like—oh! Dip-paddle-pops for Dip-paddle-pops. He loves ice cream, it's practically his name, it's perfect. He'd love it and hate it."

Bentley made a small noise. He hefted an onion in one hand, weighed it, and then put it back. "I'd usually say no, but…maybe? And maybe some Gummy gums too?"

"You planning on calling then?" Torako said. She relaxed her shoulders, cocked one hip and set her hand on it. Parent with two children between the fruits and the vegetables, two kids throwing oranges as hard as they could at the floor just to see them bounce up off the produce shield. Centaur looking at the assorted donuts and shifting his hooves like he was indulging in some guilty pleasure. Hooded figure heading from breads to meats, cart filled with an alarming number of apples and a single loaf of pumpernickel. There was nobody close enough to overhear Ben and Tora's conversation.

Still, better safe than sorry. She was pretty sure the police station had contacted businesses about installing mics and cams to catch cultists with more ease. Torako wasn't so sure about that move, but desperate times, desperate measures. The cultists needed to be caught, the demon needed to be removed. Period.

Not that they'd been having much luck on that count, but it was better than just sitting and doing nothing.

"I'm thinking about it," Bentley said. He found an onion that met his standards, set it in the cart, and then pushed down to the eggplants. "He hasn't been home for days, not since he went to babysit Lata."

"I mean, everything's fine, right?" Torako made a face at one of the cucumbers for sale, and set her sights higher up the pile in the hopes that it would be better quality. "Do we know that?"

Behind her, the cart's anti-grav boosters hummed a little as the cart was moved. "Actually, Kanti sent me a mail this morning while I was at work. She wanted to know if she could get into contact with him through me, because the usual methods weren't working."

"More babysitting?" Torako snagged one cucumber, and then two because she couldn't remember how many they had in the stasis fridge. "So soon? That's odd."

"Mmm, no, not babysitting." Bentley, when she turned around, had moved on from eggplant to squash, phone in his pocket for the moment. "She just wanted to talk with him. Apparently, Lata's learned several new words in the space of a night, and that she has a new friend named Tommy and that she and her Uncle now have a Big Secret and she Can't Say What It Is."

"So, she's understandably concerned." Torako put the cucumbers in the cart.

Bentley nodded, picked up a smaller sweet-squash, and turned around. He held it in his hands, and looked down at it while leaning against the produce display. "Honestly, I am too. Maybe a little about Lata, but…"

"This isn't like him, I get it." Torako leaned over the cart and stroked Bentley's cheek with the back of her fingers. "We can try calling him on Friday, maybe? It'll give us time to double check the house, prep, all that."

Bentley leaned into the back of her hand and let out a soft breath. His shoulders slumped. She leaned in closer and pecked him on the forehead. As she did so, Bentley whispered, "You sure we can't do it tonight? Before dinner? I'm feeling a little anxious about it. What if something's happened?"

"He's a strong guy, he can take care of himself." Torako pressed her forehead to his. She could smell his shampoo—coconut milk, hint of cinnamon. "At least, he can for another day. Nothing can get him down for long."

"Except himself," Bentley murmured. He pressed back, probably shifting his weight from his heels to his toes. "That's what worries me."

"I know," Torako said. She pulled back a little to look Ben in the eye and lowered her voice. "But things are…pretty tense. With the situation, you know, and I don't—I don't want a mistake on our end to ruin things for us. I know the wards have worked before, but…We've come so close in the past. I don't want that. We don't have enough time before your aunt comes over to…make sure. That calling him would be fine."

Bentley's mouth twisted. He looked away, squash still in both hands. His brow was wrinkled, and the skin at the edges of his eyes was tight. "I know," he whispered. "I don't like it, but I know."

Torako stroked his cheek again to get him to look at her. "I get it, sweetheart. I don't like it either. But we're—we're not in college. We're not as young anymore, we've got to take things a little more carefully."

Bentley laughed. "We're twenty-seven," Bentley said. "It's not like we're fifty."

"Still," Torako said with a little grin. "I'd rather be cautious. I don't want you going anywhere, no more than I want Dip to."

He reached out and punched her lightly in the shoulder. "Well, good thing I don't plan on going anywhere. You don't either, right?"

Torako reached out and ruffled his hair. Bentley squawked and tried to hit away her hand with one of his. "You're stuck with me, Benny-boy. What's next on the list?"

"Fish," Bentley said. "And some chicken. Ready to go over to the meat section?"

Torako waggled her eyebrows. "Only if I get to know it real well first."

Bentley sputtered and smacked her, squash still in one arm. She cackled and danced out of the way.

"That was a good one, and you know it!" she crowed. She missed Dipper backing her up, but she could handle it on her own for a bit. Besides, Dipper was missing out—Bentley's embarrassed, indignant face was the best.

"I should never take you shopping!" Bentley said, putting down the squash. "Never! You're a menace!"

He still followed her to the meat section, though.

"Immortality sucks, you know that?"

Grocknar the Destroyer opened one of his three eyes. He did not look very impressed, but Dipper didn't let that stop him from continuing.

"I know it's not actually immortality," he continued, aware in a very dim way that as all things end, so too would he, "but it may as well be. I exist so much _longer_ than…than them."

Grocknar the Destroyer had just come back from giving some poor kid a nightmare about centipedes crawling up her body and devouring her bite by bite. He was pretty exhausted, which was why he hadn't moved like all the other nightmares had once they realized Alcor the Dreambender was in a Mood. Dipper didn't even know how long he'd been sitting there with his nightmare sheep before he started speaking.

"And when you pair the immortality with omniscience…" Dipper trailed off. He reached down and tugged grass out of the ground, one strand at a time. It always grew back. At least the grass looked and acted the same when it did that.

The nightmare snorted and turned onto his other side, back to Dipper. Dipper was the boss here though, so Dipper didn't care what his minions did. He just kept pulling grass, mentally pulling all his thoughts into order.

"I keep seeing them die," he confessed to Grocknar. "I keep seeing all the ways they can die, and I was able to push it aside at first because it didn't happen too often, but—"

But then Philip died. Philip died, and Dipper had never told Bentley but he'd seen that possible death of Philip's. He'd seen Philip trip and fall and die for absolutely no reason. And Dipper shook it off, because Bentley was eighteen and had just gotten back from that nightmare school tour and he needed comfort in his father. He didn't need to be told Dipper had seen Philip die—like he had seen Philip die at eighty-seven, of stress due to overwork, or peacefully at a hundred and four, or in a magical storm at sixty-two. So he'd put it aside, and then forgotten about it, until days after Philip's funeral when Dipper had the sudden realization that he'd _seen_ Philip die like that. He never, ever wanted to tell Bentley.

"After that, I tried so hard to keep it down, but they came more and more often and I keep thinking what if? What if it actually happens like that? I can't—I can't save them. Not from something like that, not without something big in return." Dipper dug his claws into the imaginary earth of the Mindscape, envisioned what the granules of dirt would feel like and willed the sensation into being. He kept staring down at the ground. "And now I just keep thinking—is it worth it? They're here for such a short time, and it hurts so much when they leave. The more people I know, the more it hurts."

He clenched his hand so hard the pressure could turn earth into stone. He imagined that too, made it happen. When he pulled his hand out of the earth, Dipper opened it to see an unassuming rock, brown and rough and completely solid. "But—but Bentley said it's not fair to just rely on him," he said. "So I can't do that. I can't hurt him, and if I'm not there, I'm not hurt when he leaves too. Win-win, right?"

Dipper didn't see it, too engrossed with being God of the Mindscape along with his relationships with mortal beings, but Grocknar the Destroyer opened his other two eyes and then rolled them all. Dipper did hear him baah, though.

He dropped the rock and looked over at Grocknar. He scowled. "Really, Grocknar?"

Grocknar stared at him over one smoke-wool shoulder.

"I am not being dramatic! This is completely legitimate thinking!"

The nightmare had the gall to baah him in the face. In the _face_. Dipper sputtered.

"You—you insolent—really? Seriously? You went there?"

Grocknar shook his head in an equivalent of "well, if the shoe fits," and Dipper stood in a huff. In a fit of pettiness, he waved his hand and removed the grass from the ground around them, as far as a mile out.

"I'll show you _dramatic_ ," Dipper hissed. Grocknar made a noise of discontent and finally stood up. He stared Dipper in his eyes, and they glowered at each other for who knows how long.

A summons tugged at Dipper. Dipper had originally brushed all them off—especially small ones like this one—but he decided that he needed a distraction. From Grocknar, but from everything else too.

"I'm going," Dipper said. "Because I have a job to do, an actual _job_ that keeps all of you _safe_ because it builds _my_ power levels and _I don't eat you unlike other demons_. No need to thank me. You're welcome."

Grocknar bleated out something along the lines of "I wasn't going to thank you, good riddance." Dipper bristled, made the 'I'm watching you' gesture, and then blipped off to answer his summons. Like a good demon. Emphasis on Good.

Dipper closed his eyes as he materialized, and then boomed out, "W̕h̷̡͘ó ̷̀͜ d҉aŗęs͞ ͘҉̶ s̴u̕͜mm̴̀o҉̕n̡ ͢ Alc̴or ̨҉̧ t̀͘h̛̀e̸̢ ͡Ḑré́͠a̡̕͡m҉̀͠b͘͢e͟n̢d͏͜e҉͟r̡?"

"Woah, dude, that is _so_ wicked," a young person breathed. Dipper cracked one eye open and stared at the kid that summoned him. Their hair was pulled back into braids, ribbons tying each end in a haphazard cacophony of color. Dipper opened the other eye and stared a little more, feeling his metaphorical heart sink.

Of course the first summons he answered was that of a reincarnation.

Dipper scowled. "What do you want, Soos?"

"Cool nickname but nah, I'm Olla," she said. Her accent was very British. She snapped her fingers at him and grinned wide. "Last name is Sussally, though, so maybe Soos would catch?"

Dipper inhaled deep. "What. Ìs̴ ͏i͡t?"

"Like, okay dude," Olla said, scooting their desk chair over. It hovered over the floor, complaining a little at the food wrappers on the ground. "So, some ancestor of mine apparently did this, so like, you're open for homework deals, right? Because Tech class is still kicking my ass and we're ending term. I'm screwed if I don't get help now!"

"And your parents are…" Dipper asked. He screwed up his mouth into a scowl and sat mid-air, reclining as elegantly as possible.

"Haha, Mom's not really big on Tech stuff? She's into wards. Big into wards. No room in her head for other stuff, you know? All her brain power is," Olla made a sound that was maybe supposed to sound like an engine, and wiggled her fingers. "occupied, you know? And Dad's away on business. Busy busy dude, over in Kabul. Doin some kind of construction business for his boss, right? So I don't have anybody."

"Friends? Teachers? The police?"

Olla hummed and kicked her legs. Her toes brushed just shy of the air contained by the circle, and Dipper watched them with an absentminded hunger. Like, he wasn't consumed by it, but also he wouldn't say no if somebody offered him a bite.

"Nah. Too late. Homework due tomorrow. Left it too long, you know? I tried to get it, but none of the answers turned out right. Secondary's pretty hard, and this year is A-levels."

"So you summoned a demon." At least the candles were scentless.

Olla shrugged. "Hey, dude, desperate times."

Dipper stared at her. Olla didn't know desperation—but she would, he knew, because he saw her in five years, just shy of twenty-four years old and homeless as England suffered its worst economic downturn in two centuries, and she starved on the street with the other homeless people until she tried to interrupt a scuffle between two people over a discarded slice of pizza, thin and sad and two-days-in-the-snow, because then one pulled a knife and stabbed first her in the gut then the other in the throat and she laid there, bleeding out and wishing that—

"So, you know," Olla said, blind to his inattention. He shook himself out of it and concentrated. "I figured that great great whatever-greats gramps Cass did it, so why can't I?"

Dipper's mood soured further. Not only was this _Soos_ , but her ancestor was a _Cassie_ reincarnation. Of course. Of course! What was next, her father was Candy? Mother, Pacifica? Maybe Stan was her brother! Ford her Uncle! Lionel could be her second cousin twice removed. Why not?

"Like, I figure, a bowl of ice cream a question is a pretty good deal. They're long questions. Nobody was really clear on how Gramps Cass did it—not like he kept a record, you know? Whaddya think, dude Alcor? Bowl of ice cream," she held up the bowl in question, reaching back to her desk, "filled with like what, three scoops per question. I got like ten of the suckers, so that's like thirty scoops. That's _so many scoops_."

Dipper blinked in interest. His stomach—kind of—gurgled, especially after days of no deals plus eating Torako's sleep paralysis with 0 reward whatsoever. Maybe he could deal with Soos and his army of reincarnation relatives. "How big is the scoop?"

Olla held up the scoop in question.

"Holy shit," Dipper whispered to himself. Olla nodded solemnly. Dipper stared at the bowl of the scoop, which was probably the size of his fist. Dipper could _definitely_ deal with Olla and her probable army of reincarnation relatives. Especially for Soos. Soos was great, whatever reincarnation, even if he was maybe going to die at fifty flat, caught in a malfunctioning elevator that just wouldn't open, until she was so starved that she died on the way to the hospital.

Dipper closed his eyes, and counted to three. Then he used the promise of a deal (tilted way in his favor, because that was like five, seven tubs of ice cream right there) to push the flashes of omniscience down. "What flavor is the ice cream?"

Olla's face lit up. Her eyes were wide, bright against her skin. "Oh dude, I've got the best flavors! Turtle Tracks, Loch Ness Mint, Platypus Sweet Potato, Cookies and Cream, you name it! We love ice cream. I mean, I'm gonna have to tell Mom that I used a bunch to summon you, but she'll understand. Probably."

Not like Dipper was going to complain about parenting and listening to one's elders in the face of a deal like this. "All right kid, shake it and you got a deal."

Olla grinned wide and stretched her hand out. Blue flames lit up their hands. Dipper felt that heady rush of a deal course through him, and shuddered with the force of it. It felt so _good_. And it would feel better when he got his ice cream, so he held out a hand and gestured 'gimme.' "Payment?"

Soos's reincarnation laughed. She dragged a freezer bag out from under her desk and opened a tub of Platypus Sweet Potato. Dipper tracked her hand as she took the ice cream spoon and dealt him one, two, three heaping scoops of heaven. If heaven existed, Dipper was sure it would be ice cream.

(more seriously, he sees himself with all the people he has loved, with Mabel _and_ Mira, Henry _and_ Lata, the same soul split into all the different faces it's taken, and everything is good, clear blue skies in Oregon where the summer never ends, it never ends and nobody grows old, nobody suffers, and he is _normal_ again, but Dipper knows that will never happen)

"So lay it on me," Dipper said, taking the spoon Olla gave him because eating with his hands has not been very well received in the Pines-Lam-Farkas household, "what do you need help with?"

Olla reached over for her school pad, propped between two thick books that look well-loved, and turned it on. She handed it to Dipper, who held it between his thumb and index finger while looking at the question.

"That's easy," he said after five seconds. "The first answer is the Lili'uokalani Sequence, named after Ilana Ming's favorite historical monarch. There you go, answer given, write it down and we'll go to the next part of the question."

"Not so fast." Olla took out a physical pen and paper and settled into her chair, looking at him expectantly. "I don't just want the answers. You have to explain. Ilana Ming made this sequence? What sequence is it? What does it do? Why do we use it?"

Dipper stared at Olla. "You…" he said, "don't need all that info to answer the question?"

Olla rolled her eyes. "Dude, I know that. But, like, I need to remember it so the more I can connect it to, the more I'll remember? I know my brain, you know."

He couldn't help it. He laughed, smile a little too wide and laughter too reedy, but he did it anyways. "What's your favorite subject then, kiddo?"

"Like, books, of course. English lit. I mean, I dunno that I want to do it, like research it, for a living—teaching seems super cool though—but like, you looked around my room at all, dude? I guess ice cream is pretty distracting though, so you get a pass." Olla waved one hand around as she spoke.

Dipper looked around, and sure enough, there were books everywhere. Most of them were fiction, but there were a couple non-fiction scattered around. There were a couple of old Twin Souls books in the corner—but Dipper told himself they weren't there, and there were plenty of other good books in the room that he could ignore the awful presence of the Hell Books. As it was, though, he was never introducing Olla to Torako. Never.

Batoor, on the other hand, would benefit from an English conversation partner, so maybe Dipper should offer to get them in contact with—

Dipper shut that thought down hard. Maybe he was making an exception for Soos and delicious ice cream, but that didn't mean he was going back to everybody. Not yet. Not until he had everything figured out. Not until he figured out if it was worth it.

(he thought of Bentley and Torako and hoped, really hoped, that it was)

"All right then," Dipper said. He swiped to a new note-taking tab and started to write out the sequence. "When Ming did her stuff, she was looking for a way to more smoothly integrate magics into technology…"

It turned out that Torako was right about not having time to summon Dipper before Meung-soo came over at six thirty; they had just finished setting the table with all the food when Meung-soo showed up, nervous and fiddling with her jewelry.

"Come on in!" Bentley said, stepping aside and letting his aunt over the threshold. "We just finished everything, Torako's really excited to meet you."

"I'm excited to meet her too," Meung-soo said. "I'm sorry your other partner couldn't make it."

Bentley swallowed down the disappointment he felt at Dipper's absence. "It's okay, he just ended up being busier than any of us expected. We thought he'd be back in town, but he's not around."

"Oh," Meung-soo said. She took off her shoes in the entryway, then stepped into the dining room. Bentley shut the door behind her. "What does he do?"

"A little of everything, honestly," Torako called from across the kitchen island separating the kitchen from the dining room. "He's selling stuff right now I think? Honestly, he picked up the job so fast he didn't have any time to tell us about it. Hi, I'm Torako, it's nice to meet you! I'd shake your hand, but they're wet so give me a moment and I'll be right there."

Meung-soo laughed, one hand partially covering her mouth. She had a really nice laugh, Bentley thought. He felt a little warm and giddy, the emotions slowly pushing aside his worry and upset about Dipper.

"I'll do that," Meung-soo said. She smiled at Bentley. "Where should I sit?"

There were four chairs at the table. Bentley pointed at the one that wasn't Dipper's, and said, "Right there, if that's all right! Can you eat with chopsticks?"

Meung-soo laughed again. "Of course I can! Anjan grew up in Korea and insisted we be able to, even if Ma was Mexican and Mama was, in her words, a Jamaican-European mutt."

The grandparents again. Bentley kept smiling anyways. "Oh! Do your names come from any particular heritage?"

"Korean," Meung-soo said, standing by the chair. "But Soo-jan and I were raised Catholic, like Ma wanted. I eventually left the church, but Soo-jan practiced a little. Did Philip ever raise you in a religion?"

Bentley shook his head. "No. He explained them to me whenever I was interested, and took me to whatever services I was curious about, but nothing was ever enforced. Torako?"

"Buddhist, with a sprinkling of Islam from Dad and Christianity from Momma Mai. Don't really do much of any except for watching the New Year's broadcast from Kyoto, though. We're not super religious." Torako walked up to Meung-soo and stuck out her hand. "Torako Lam, nice to meet a relative of Bentley's."

"Meung-soo Ellig," his aunt replied, setting her hand in Torako's. They shook hands. "It's good to meet you too. I'm glad you've been there for Bentley; as a fellow introvert, I know it's hard to make friends. Especially ones that last."

Torako shot Bentley a grin. "Well, I'm pretty hard to say no to. I was really persistent in High School, and I've tempered it a bit but I'm still hard to shake. Aren't I, Ben?"

"It's true," Bentley said. "Please sit down! Would you like anything in particular to drink? We've got some wine, or something non-alcoholic if that's more to your tastes."

"Non-alcoholic if you don't mind," his aunt said. She sat down. "Do you have some tea?"

Bentley thanked whatever power that was out there (that wasn't demonic) that they had thought to pick up a bottle of barley tea. "Yes, actually. Torako?"

"Water! What're you getting?"

Bentley flicked her shoulder as he passed her on the way to the fridge. He pulled out the tea, then reached into a pocket in the right that cooled rather than chilled, and withdrew a bottle of white wine. "Well, I figure that since I'm not on call tonight, I can have a glass."

"You're a little shit," Torako said. Bentley laughed and pulled down two regular glasses and one wineglass. "Really," she continued as Bentley poured their drinks, "I should be the one running away. Bentley looks sweet, but he's a vicious bugger."

"Oh?" Meung-soo said. "I wouldn't have guessed that!"

"I live with Torako and Tyrone," Bentley said. He looked up and caught Meung-soo's eye before cocking an eyebrow. "It's a survival trait that was bred in me. I have to be nasty sometimes, what with the shenanigans I put up with."

"Yeah, we were pretty awful in undergrad, weren't we," Torako mused. She leaned on the table, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. The light from the fake window up above, reflecting weather from the sky outside, lit her up and surrounded her in a warm glow. It didn't quite reach Meung-soo, but it glinted off her earrings and the metal hoops around her wrists, inlaid with wardic spells he didn't know the meanings of. Bentley thought about the dusty art supplies somewhere in the office room's closet. He thought about crafts, or painting, for the first time in ages. Maybe he would dig them out on Saturday or Sunday.

"I think most undergrads are pretty awful," Meung-soo said. "They're still children. Just…transitioning into more responsibility."

Bentley picked up all three drinks in both hands. "Not that graduate students are that much better. Look at Torako; she's still in school."

"Hey, I'm better!" Torako protested, taking her water from him. Meung-soo reached over to do the same, and Bentley sat down.

"Says the woman who tried to keep my face red the entire time we were at the grocery store today," Bentley said. "Starting with penis jokes and not really straying outside that realm of humor."

Meung-soo choked. Bentley felt embarrassed for a moment for letting that out, and Torako guffawed. "You're doing plenty fine for yourself there!"

"Shut your face," Bentley muttered. "You're stupid and your opinion doesn't count."

"So," Meung-soo said as Torako stuck out her tongue. "What's for dinner? It looks delicious."

Bentley praised his aunt for her diversionary tactics. But not out loud, because he'd embarrassed himself enough for one evening. "I did a few dishes! There's cucumber salad, and tomato with mozzarella drizzled with soy-sauce, steamed sweet-squash sprinkled with cinnamon, fish-chicken pinapple-ginger stir-fry with noodles, and then fruit dessert afterwards."

"I can't say I'm much of a vegetarian," Meung-soo said carefully, side-eyeing him with an expression Bentley found hauntingly familiar but was unable to place on her face, "but I won't say no to a good meat dish, and it looks _very_ appetizing."

There was silence for a moment. Meung-soo turned bright red, and then Torako smacked the table twice and pointed at Bentley. "Oooooh! OOOOH!"

Bentley stared at Meung-soo. He mentally rescinded his praise of her. "Why would you do that," he asked, tone flat.

She buried her face in her hands. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," she said.

"You're my aunt," Bentley realized in horror. "My aunt made a dick joke at me. Why is this my life."

Torako cackled louder. "You're stuck with her! I love her already. Meung-soo, I love you. Can we keep you?"

"I'm sorry," Meung-soo said between her fingers. "I'm in a committed relationship, and while I'm flattered by the attention, incest and women aren't…really my things."

Bentley wanted to slide under the table. This time, he covered his own face in horror, and tried to drown out the sound of Torako laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. He almost wished she would choke.

At least Dipper wasn't there, Bentley thought. It would have made things about ten times worse.

After that, dinner passed in a manner that was less inundated with sexual innuendo, thankfully. The food was good, the company was better, and they were on dessert when Meung-soo asked Bentley if he'd be willing to see her off on Saturday.

"Of course! Which port?" Bentley gathered all their dishes and set them on the kitchen island to be cleaned later. "Is it Hames Memorial?"

"If that's HMM, then yes. I'm set to leave at eleven, but with security and everything I need to be there by ten." Meung-soo sipped at her tea. "We could meet up for breakfast, if that's fine? All of us?"

Bentley looked at Torako. "Does that sound good?" He was only dimly upset with the prospect of having to wake up early. It's not like he could see his aunt every day, after all.

"As long as I'm not called in to work, sure!" Torako said. She swirled the water in her glass. "I'll put it down to a tentative yes."

"They'd better hire you after all of this," Bentley said. He sat back down, held his wineglass in one hand. "What kind of intern is on call?"

"The demonology kind, where all my coursework is literally this internship," Torako said. "But yeah, I'd be pretty salty if they didn't at least offer, with this last case especially. I hope they pay overtime. I keep forgetting to ask."

"When do you graduate?"

"Mid-may, thankfully," Torako said. "I'll be so happy when I'm actually employed. Sure, I get some insurance through the school, but job insurance is like ten times better. Just another month! I can do this!"

"Good luck then!" Meung-soo said, smile wide and eyes creased shut. "Let me know the date and I'll make sure to send something. Are your parents coming out?"

"Of course they are," Torako said. "They're getting a hotel, but they'll be there for the ceremony and it'll be great!"

Bentley knew that another thing that would happen was Torako's parents pestering her about coming home, about how there were plenty of demonology jobs in the CIF, even if that included listings not on Minte de Daos. It was safer there. Demonology laws were tighter. She never could explain that that's why she couldn't go home, that she didn't want to go back. Bentley…wasn't looking forward to that conversation.

"I'm so glad," Meung-soo said. She opened her mouth to ask something else, then looked at Bentley and her expression shuttered. Bentley could guess what the question was, and was relieved when she changed the subject. Torako's parents might have come out for him last year, but it hadn't been the same. "Oh, I'm sorry, what time is…"

"8:30," Torako said. The light above had dimmed halfway through dinner, prompting their lights to slowly turn on. "Busy night?"

"I just have a very early meeting tomorrow," Meung-soo said. She stood up. "If it's not too rude of me…"

"Of course!" Bentley said, standing up as quickly as he dared. "You're here on business, you don't have to feel obligated to spend all your time with us. Really, meeting you has been…it's been so nice."

Meung-soo stared at him, almost like she wasn't seeing Bentley. Then she smiled, eyes soft with heartache, and reached out to hold his cheek, the bracelets sliding down her arm. He let her, a little stunned.

"Thank you, Bentley," she said, softly. "It has been my pleasure as well."

He smiled back as she dropped her hand. "I'll see you Saturday, though! We'll say goodbye then."

Meung-soo stepped back and laughed a little. "Of course! I'm sorry for being so sentimental and silly. We'll see each other again."

Bentley and Torako saw her out the door, then retreated to the kitchen to do the dishes. They spent the first few minutes in silence, bodies moving around each other on autopilot, comfortable in their spaces and comfortable with the routine of cleaning.

It was when they were halfway through dinner dishes, Bentley drying the serving bowl they had used for the cucumber salad, that Torako said, "I like her."

Bentley grinned at Torako. "Right? She's really nice. She's trying."

"What has she said about Philip?"

Bentley set the bowl on the counter. "Not a lot, and nothing one way or the other. Apparently, they disagreed about some stuff after Mom died, and that's why there's been radio silence on her end. Anyway, most of it's been about my mom, and some about my grandparents. Her parents."

"The ones you never met," Torako said. She set a few sudsy spoons in the sink for him to rinse off. "The ones who never sent you like cards or anything."

"Yeah." Bentley shrugged. "But I think she loved them, and they loved her, so of course she'll talk about them. She really loved my mom too."

Torako hummed. "You think that's why she got in contact with you?"

Bentley laughed a little. "I don't have to ask to know that's why." He dried the spoons, opened the cutlery drawer, and set them in there. "But…I guess that doesn't mean I'm _not_ glad to meet her."

She didn't say anything back to him, just bumped her hip into his and kissed him on the top of his head. "I'm happy then," Torako said. "I'm happy for you as long as you're happy."

They continued to clean in silence, broken only by the occasional, off-tune strain of hummed song from Torako. When she was just finishing up, Bentley said, "I…I can't say I don't wish I had somebody of Dad's, though, you know?"

"I get that." Torako reached over with sudsy hands and rinsed the last dish before giving it to him. "But, I guess if nothing else—you have us? You have me. And Dipper, when he comes back."

Bentley swallowed. "If he comes back."

"He will," Torako said. "Even if I have to summon him and drag his ass back here myself. Which we're doing tomorrow night, remember? After we check all the wards."

"All right." Bentley took a deep breath, and tried to push any fears about Dipper's nastier tendencies out of mind. "All right, tomorrow."

"Also, speaking of wards, just of a different flavor," Torako said, reaching over him to snag the pile of plates, "do you know what the ones on her bracelets were? You saw them, right?"

"I keep forgetting to ask, or remembering at a bad time," Bentley said. He handed Torako the bowls, watched her stretch to set them on the shelf. "If I had to make a guess, I'd say they were memory enhancers?"

"You can read wards?" Torako's eyebrows shot up.

"Oh no," Bentley said, shaking his head and holding his arms up in an 'x.' "No, I can't. Meung-soo just mentioned how her memory was much worse than my mom's, but she kept remembering things I'd said about sigils even though that's not her field at all."

"Makes sense," Torako said. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "That does mean you need to be even more careful about what you say around her, though. If she's augmenting her memory with a wardic spell, then who knows what she remembers?"

Bentley nodded. "Yeah. I like her, but…" She hadn't even met Dipper. He wasn't sure yet that he would ever introduce Meung-soo Ellig to Alcor the Dreambender.

"All right then, good talk, good talk," Torako said, patting him on the back. "What should we do tonight? Watch a couple movies? Make some nifty new shirts that we can throw in Dip's face when he comes back?"

Bentley dimmed the lights in the kitchen as they moved to leave it. "Well, who says we can't do—"

Torako's phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and answered the call before it had even rung a second time. "Torako, what's up?"

Bentley leaned against the kitchen island and watched her expression shift from serious to shocked to determined.

"That's—okay, right, I'll be right over, Officer Nathan. Do I need to—got it, it needs to be broken. Salts? You have all the materials? Right. Right. See you ASAP." Torako hung up and moved to the front door, calling over her shoulder as she went. "They found proof of a victim, relocated the poor kid to demonic curse-breaking in the hospital general. They're going to need all the help they can get, because it sounds like a doozy."

"Kid?" Bentley asked as she pulled on her jacket.

"Yeah. What fucker would do that to a kid? Seriously?" Torako turned around and gave him a short kiss on the cheek. She went to leave, but at a sudden, chilling thought, he pulled her back and pecked her on the lips.

Torako blinked in confusion. "Hey, what's that for? That's rare. You usually don't like that."

"I just love you," he said. "I just…be safe, okay?"

"Hey, I'm not tackling this on my own," she said, ruffling his hair. "It's in a contained area with a whole bunch of other people working to solve the problem."

"I mean, if they were nasty enough to go after a kid, who knows what they'd do to the people in charge of the investigation? They're still out there." Bentley zipped up her jacket, pulled her close. "Just come home, okay?"

She hugged him tight. "I will. I'll keep an eye out and tell the others to too, okay? I love you."

"So much." Bentley whispered into her jacket. Reluctantly he stepped back. "Okay. Do your job, even though you're just Intern Torako Lam."

Torako saluted. "Aye Aye, Head Practitioner Farkas! Reporting to duty!" She winked at him, kissed him on the forehead, and then was gone.

It was just shy of nine o'clock. Bentley looked at the clock, then at the television set, then at the bedroom. The house was so dark. So quiet. Too quiet. Bentley reached over, and locked the door behind Torako.

He made himself a hot cocoa, drank it while watching knitting tutorials. He finished them. Then, he washed the mug, showered, changed, and went to bed early with his nightlight on and curled up under the covers on a bed that felt too big for him alone. Bentley slept.

Bentley dreams. He dreams that Dipper comes home, normal, all smiles and laughter until he reaches Torako, and then suddenly she is on the ground crying, her arm ripped off at the elbow instead of just broken. He dreams that Dipper opens his mouth, wide, wide, _wide_ , darkness in its maw and Bentley cannot stop Dipper from swallowing Torako whole. Dipper keeps laughing, and when Bentley hits him, demands to know why, why, _why_ , he turns to Bentley and runs a razor-sharp nail along the wide contour of Bentley's cheek.

"B̖̫͊̽́e͑̉̂̄̿̎c̸̞̔̔ͨͤͪ̊̓à̛̜̙͓͕̜̓̀ͣ̾̌ü̫͇̦͎͍̪̒ͬͬ͡s̻̻̻̮̫e͆̇ͪ͠ ͯ̈́y̮̯̙͉͓̯͚͐̾͋̌o͍̥͇͔̅ȕ'͐r̨̹̫e̦͉͖̱̭̜͗ͅ ̖̣̪̽͋ͧ̑ͭ̈́m̳̮̦̤̰y̒ͯ̓̍҉̟͙͔ ̞͉̪̀p͎̮̔̋̄ͦ̊ͫ͞r͛̅̓ͭ̂̔e͖c͈͈͈ͥ̋ͩ̐͟iͭ̿̿̿͏̗͉̲̙o̴ͧ̿̉̌͆͐ͤú̹̾ͤ͊ͨ͛͜s̳͌͐ͤ̃ͮ̚͡ ͚̜̬̰͓̒̌͂M̺̜͙̬͜i̛͚͔z̿͌a͈̜̟̟̘̚r̼̣̠͎͂̀̃̿ͭ͛̏," Dipper says, in a crackling croon. "A̶̷n̕d͝ ̶y̡͟o͝͝u̷͝ ͏a̡͏re͜ ̛m̨̡͏į͜͝ņę̀,̵҉ ͢mine,̶͜ M͍̫͓̪̜̟̼͕̝̄̽ͫ́̔ͭ̍̈̿̏͆̑͆̋ͥ̐͌̀̚Ḯ̵̡̠̖̻̘̲̝̮̭̻̠̰̈͌ͯ̿͋͒ͦ̇͋̾Ṅ̵̗͖̟̫̪͇̬͓̤͓ͦ̅̓̍̉̽͑ͯ̕͠É̳͔̻̻̈ͧͧ̔́͜͠͝.̴̧̰͍̮̬̦̒ͥ̎ͮ̌́͠͞"

Dipper leans forward and kisses Bentley, hard, his teeth shredding Bentley's lips and swallowing his screams the way he'd swallowed Torako, his nails digging into Bentley's shoulders as he struggled to get away and—

Bentley dreams. He dreams that his father is at his desk, at home, is alive and well. Bentley walks forward and hugs his father from behind, love bubbling up in his chest, and whispers, "I missed you so, so much, dad."

His father continues working. He doesn't even acknowledge Bentley is there, and the lack of attention makes Bentley pull back a little. "Dad?"

"Oh, you're finally home, are you?" Philip says. "Finally could be bothered to come back, then? How magnanimous of you."

"Dad?" Bentley steps back. Philip continues to work. "I—I came back as much as I could. It's just—school was so busy, I was so busy. And I didn't want Torako to pay for my ticket every time I came back, so I had to work. I'm—I'm sorry."

"Those are just excuses," Philip says. He opens a book, the rasping of its pages loud in the abnormal silence of his office. Where was his music? Bentley always remembered music, but there's just a loud buzzing sound in the back of his mind. "You were glad to be away from me. Away from your stupid dad who was obsessed with stupid things that alienated him from his family, from his wife's family, from his friends and from his own son. I bet you were glad when I died."

"No!" Bentley steps back forward, his fists clenched. "No, I—I could never be happy about that! I was heartbroken. I still _am_ heartbroken! Dad, I _love_ you!"

Philip finally turned around. He smiled at Bentley, eyes flat and cold behind his glasses, flickering with static and without reflection. There are orange lilies sprouting from his chest, bright, brighter than anything. "Oh, Benny-boy," he said. "Don't lie to yourself. You know better."

Bentley opens his mouth to refute, to say that he really, really does love Philip, but—

Bentley dreams. Bentley stands in front of Torako and Dipper, who are holding hands, staring down their noses at him. They're frowning, like him being before them is an unpleasant surprise.

"Guys?" Bentley asks, voice shaking. He doesn't know why, but Dipper—Dipper makes him remember nightmares of being kissed, of his desires being ignored and his fears being dismissed—and Bentley steps away from them both.

"What did I ever see in you?" Torako asks, cocking an eyebrow. "You're not even pretty, and you'd never love me back the way I do you. You'd never give me what I want. Why did I even stick around?"

"You stuck around for me, darling," Dipper says, tipping Torako's face towards him. "I had to stay around my Mizar, so you stuck around for me. I'll give you what you want. I'm pretty. I can even try to love you. Isn't that so much better than that thing over there?"

"Tora? Dipper?" Bentley feels himself crying. "What are you saying? Why are you—"

"We're not saying anything you don't deserve," Dipper says. He looks at Bentley with accusing eyes. "You can't live up to the Mizar name. You'll never live up to it—you're not as outgoing as her, you're not as vivacious, you're not as colorful or bright or anything. You're not even the right _gender_ ," he sneers.

"That doesn't matter, though!" Bentley says. "You told me, it doesn't—"

"You're not Mabel," Dipper cuts over him, smooth like plasma through steel. "You never will be. At least Torako is Torako to me. She'll always be Torako to me, won't you darling?"

"And you'll always be Dipper," Torako says, running the pad of one finger down the side of his cheek. She ignores Bentley, and Bentley can't decide if that's better or worse than the absolute derision in her gaze earlier. "My Dipper. My Alcor. I'm so much stronger than him, so much more outgoing. I can be your Mizar, if you want."

Dipper purrs, low and dark, and holds Torako closer. Her eyelids flutter lower, half-mast, in a way that Bentley has only seen when she's playing chicken with Dipper and never for long. "Oh, Torako—I wish you were Mizar. Then I would never have to put up with that thing."

Bentley takes a step back as they start to kiss, then another, his heart in his chest as they shut him out entirely. "Guys?" he asks, except his voice is so small he can barely hear it. "Guys?" He—

Bentley dreams. Bentley does not wake.

Bentley didn't wake.

The ceremony was long, and vicious. Alû's claws were sunk deep in the kid, a young cyclops (Ethan, his name was Ethan) whose parents had no shady past and no known enemies. It took Torako, Officer Pillage, and Officer Hsiksa five hours to break the connection, and another half hour to make sure that nothing of its influence was left on the child. He would be traumatized for a long time, and Torako sat with him while his parents and the police talked therapists, talked PTSD and potential sleep-deprivation disorders. Ethan couldn't do more than shake and stare at nothing, but Torako made sure that she was holding his hands, that he had a physical presence nearby to know that he wasn't alone.

He was only nine years old, and Torako was so, so angry, and tired, and frustrated with how reactionary everything they did was. She kept thinking, on the commute home, of ways they could have been more proactive: paired with nonprofits or government agencies to strengthen anti-demon wards, issued pamphlets to families and community members on recognizing the signs of demonic sleep paralysis, anything. More stringent patrols to capture the cultists, stronger penalties for summonings of this nature, more collective responsibility on the part of citizens. Anything. _Anything_.

It was almost three AM by the time Torako got to their apartment. She opened the door—odd, Bentley hadn't locked it?—and slipped off her jacket. Then the hair on the back of her neck, on her arms stood up on end, and she froze. Slowly, she thumbed on the flashlight application on her phone, and pointed it up at the corner formed by the ceiling and the far wall.

There, Bentley's sigils were ash-black, dead, stark against the white paint behind them. Torako inhaled deep and sharp, because _those should be invisible_. That they weren't meant the sigils had been broken. That they weren't meant that something had gotten in, something not-Dipper, something demonic, but _what_ could have gotten—

Magical creatures had been disappearing. The cultists had used those creatures as sacrifices to summon Alû once. They were still out there. There was literally nothing, _nothing,_ stopping them from summoning Alû again. She could hardly breathe. She dialed Officer Nathan and put him on loudspeaker as she began to slowly walk through the house.

He answered on the third ring. "Torako? What are you calling me for, was there a complication with—"

"Officer Nathan," she said, noticing how high her voice was but not caring. "Officer Nathan, my apartment was broken into and the sigils are _black_."

Officer Nathan was quiet for a moment, and then—"Fuck," he said. "Fuck. Okay. Was Bentley home? Was Tyrone?"

"Bentley was," Torako said. He wasn't on the couch. Wasn't in the kitchen. She moved back to the bedroom, where the door was closed and it was _never completely closed_ , she was so scared.

"If it was Alû, it will fine, you can pull him out of it—"

"Officer Nathan, I think _somebody was in my home_." Torako's breathing was harsh. She reached out to open the door, but didn't want to just in case—"The bedroom door is shut, it's never shut, never, not when Bentley goes to sleep because his print is coded not to, what do I do, _what do I do_?"

"Take your sleeve and open the door," Officer Nathan said. "I'm coming over. I'm staying on the line, but I'm sending a message for the others to convene at your place."

"Okay," Torako said. She could feel herself starting to cry. "Okay, I'm opening the door." She slid the sleeve of her jacket over her hand and pushed the button to open the door. It couldn't read her finger, so it just—opened. No silly pre-programmed fanfare, no slow-motion, nothing.

The lights flickered on. The room was empty. The bedsheets were mussed up, the nightlight was on, but Bentley wasn't there.

Bentley _wasn't there_.

"Torako? Torako, is he paralyzed?"

"He's not here," Torako said, voice shaking. She couldn't stand. She dropped to the ground, stared at the empty bed. "He's not here. He's gone, he's gone Officer Nathan, he's _gone_."

"What do you mean—"

"He's not _here_!" Torako said, voice shrill and loud. "I fucking mean he's _not here at all_ , there's nobody here the house is empty except for me!"

"Did you check the other rooms in the house?" Officer Nathan asked. "Check the bathroom, the office, he might be there—"

"The lights would be on and they're not, they're not, they're not he's gone Officer he's _gone!_ " She was crying, crying fuck she never cried she _hated_ crying.

"Torako, I know you're scared, we'll be there soon. Just—stay as calm as you can, stay with me Torako, stay with me."

She couldn't. Torako dropped the phone onto the ground and held her face in her shaking hands, and tried to control her breathing. But she couldn't, and by the time Officer Nathan found her, she was bent over, forehead to the ground and hyperventilating into her own hands.

Bentley was gone.


	6. Filly has a Very Bad Day

**A/N:** f f dot net, you suck at formatting. And also at censoring your own address. I'm astounded.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Filly has a Very Bad Day**

Torako spent the next day, night, and half the day after alternatively sleeping and crying at Officer Nathan's apartment. Then, heart still heavy, eyes red and nose stuffed full, she willed herself to get up. Then, after she managed to do that, she forced herself to make dinner and stop being such a burden.

"Sweetheart," Hepsa said when Torako brought her dinner, her knitting falling off her iron nails, "you didn't have to! I was going to call in for food. You need your rest."

"And you need yours," Torako said back. She straightened the jacket Bentley had sigilled for her, back in her cult hunting days. "Besides, you've put up with my caterwauling for the past what, thirty-six hours? And fed me? It's fine." She set the tray down on Hepsa's lap, then sat in the stool next to her.

Hepsa frowned. It was intimidating, and Torako couldn't stop herself from squirming and glancing away at the reinforced closet doors.

"They'll find him. It will be okay." Hepsa reached out, and Torako obediently held her rough hand, slightly cool to the touch from the denseness of Hepsa's skin.

Torako swallowed and closed her eyes. They stung. She was sick of crying, but it just wouldn't stop. She wanted Dipper. She couldn't have Dipper unless she went home. She didn't want to go home. She wanted Bentley back, and Dipper there, and she had no access to either of them.

If Dipper had been around more this last week, she couldn't help but wonder, would Bentley still be at home? She pushed the thought aside as soon as she had it, not ready to face the idea.

Hepsa squeezed her hand, lightly, careful of Torako's relatively fragile skin. It reminded Torako of Dipper, and she clenched her teeth to stop herself from turning back into a saltwater fountain. "They _will_. You have to have faith."

Torako laughed. At least, she tried to; it came out like the dying squeak-crackle-sigh of a Timber-Tinder-Sprite. "That's all I have," she said. It was mostly the truth; she knew Bentley wasn't dead. If he had died, Dipper would have…

Would he have told her, though? Torako pinched the bridge of her nose and breathed in again. Knowing that idiot, he probably would be too guilty to tell her. At least she'd know if Bentley died within a few days afterwards; Dipper would tear whoever did it apart, leaving such a bloody mess that it would be all over the news.

Fuck. She didn't want that. She didn't want that, they couldn't have that. If Ben died—Ben being gone was bad enough, but if Ben died, violently, Torako thought maybe Dipper would die a little too. He would die enough that he wouldn't be _him_ anymore for a long time. Long enough for Torako's life to pass, and another after that, and another after that. She was a demonologist. She knew the trends.

Hepsa rubbed her back, pulled her close. Torako didn't know when she'd moved the tray of food out of the way. "I know it's hard," Hepsa said. "But Bentley will come back to you. They'll get him back. _You'll_ get him back, you and Tyrone both."

She'd told Hepsa, Officer Nathan, everybody who asked, that Tyrone was on a trip. That she couldn't reach him; he'd gone into an area without service, and that she'd try to contact him as soon as possible. But Torako had let them handle talking to Bentley's work, and after that his aunt—she couldn't face it then. She still couldn't.

Apparently Meung-soo was still leaving the next day. She had offered, Officer Nathan said, to stay for Torako, but Torako just. She felt like sleeping so that she had the smallest, tiniest chance of getting up the next morning and finding her boys in the apartment, where they belonged. She didn't feel like mourning with a near stranger, no matter how nice she was. So she said no, and Meung-soo Ellig didn't cancel her return ride home.

And now Torako was crying again. Great. Fantastic. She wouldn't be surprised if she was dehydrated before the weekend was through.

"You will," Hepsa crooned, though it was more gravelly than a croon should be. Torako was laying on the bed, somehow. A sudden wave of derision and self-loathing overtook her—why should she be sitting still, doing nothing, when Bentley was out there somewhere suffering—and it took all she had not to shoot off the bed right away. Instead, she took a deep breath, and gave Hepsa a hug.

"Okay," Torako said. She took another deep breath, in and out, like she did sometimes with Bentley when it got to be too much. The realization hurt. It was also a piece of him. She held it close. "Okay. I will. You're right. I will."

She needed to get up. She needed to move. Torako gave Hepsa one last hug, and shimmied off the bed, which ow, was so much harder than the couch. She would die sleeping on this bed, and she would die sad.

"Where are you going?" Hepsa asked, concern around the set of her mouth. She didn't restrain Torako, though; just let her stand.

"Who said I was going anywhere?" Torako asked. She wiped her eyes, hard, with the heels of her hands and sniffled a little. In, out. In, out.

Hepsa crossed her arms and stared at Torako. Torako fidgeted, then grinned nervously. "Okay, yes, you're right, okay. I just…I need a walk. I need to move. I can run down to the grocery store and grab, I don't know, ice cream?"

Hepsa stared a little longer, then nodded. "All right. I'll hold you to that. There's money on the—"

"No no no no no," Torako said, holding up one hand. "No. I've mooched off you and Officer Nathan for long enough. I can buy my own ice cream. I'm an intern paid a decent salary."

"Are you sure—"

"Absolutely sure," Torako said. "I have money on me. I can get the ice cream. If I'm not back in an hour, tops, you know to call the cops."

"I'll call them on the second," Hepsa warned, relaxing back into her pillows. There was only a little give. Torako straightened her spine at the thought of sleeping with those, and her back cracked a little. "So let me know if you're running late."

"Will do, promise," Torako said, backing out the door. She watched Hepsa drag her tray of dinner onto her lap, and thought of her own on the kitchen counter; she'd eat it later. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Go," Hepsa said. "Bring me one with little copper shavings, in the specialty section."

Dipper kind of liked copper shavings too, sometimes. It was never a good sign when he did, but he still liked them. Torako smiled wide, even if it felt a little plastic to her. "Gotcha in one, Hepsa! Later, gater."

Hepsa waved, and Torako turned to head down the hallway, glancing at the pictures of Hepsa, and Nathan, and their families. The smile fell from her face, but like she told herself, ice cream would help. Ice cream and moving around was a good first step to getting her feet back again so that she could actually start getting Bentley back. She would get him back. She would.

* * *

Bentley dreams.

He can't remember how long he has been dreaming, only that he is, and that he is afraid, and that seconds pass like hours, that hours pass like years, or maybe it's the other way around and time has no meaning, anymore. If he closes his dream-eyes, he finds them open. If he covers his ears, he finds his hands down by his sides. He can only watch, and listen, and know that everything that feels real, that doesn't feel real, is all fake.

It's hard to do that under the still phantom, but growing, sensation of being eaten alive. He screams, and the noise comes back hollow to his ears. He clutches himself hard enough to turn his knuckles white, but can barely feel his nails in his arm. He blinks, and strains his eyes so much the pain is acute, but there is nothing. He can feel himself unravelling, his mind pulling apart. He clutches it, but feels powerless, helpless, against the weight of nothingness.

He dreams.

* * *

Officer Nathan called her five minutes from the grocery store. Torako fumbled with her phone, then held it up to her ear. "What's up Off?"

Silence.

Torako felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. She dipped into the space between crowds at the juncture of two shops, and spoke at a lower register. "Haha, get it? It's like, Officer, you know, but you're supposed to not be working anymore so you're Off, right?"

Nothing. Two seconds, three, Torako held her breath, and then—a grunt, distorted by static, and the rasping clang of a metal bat against brick. Maybe most people wouldn't know that noise, but Torako did, after a solid year of hunting with Mizar's infamous weapon. Torako swallowed down most of the fear that rose up in her, sharp and barbed with grief, but her hands still shook as she navigated her phone to the 'track user' function she and Officer Nathan mutually enabled in their third month of working together. "Just in case," he'd said.

Just in case had probably been meant for her, not him, but Torako wasn't going to split those hairs. She started to track Officer Nathan's phone to a few blocks away.

She dodged a couple of families, keeping up a one-sided conversation while banking on the supposition that she'd been muted. The line was still active. She heard Officer Nathan rasp something out, a growl, but she couldn't distinguish the words. Then an unfamiliar voice spoke up, and she needed to be there _now_. "Haha, yeah," she said, slipping into a thankfully abandoned alleyway. Torako broke into a sprint, glancing at her phone every once in a while to make sure she was going the right way. Just a couple minutes later, she was close, and she slowed down to more of a stalk. She breathed light, through her nose, and listened.

"…little dumbass, this one's got no magic!"

"You said we needed a big one! I'm low on power, I can't tell anymore if they have magic or not!" Somebody with a shrill voice said. Torako crept closer, stepping over a discarded and trampled box. The voices were coming from the side-entrance to the next alley over, somewhere between the ends of a pet menagerie and a tech fix shop. Torako used to be amazed that alleys still existed, until somebody pointed out that not having a manual access through cities begged for magical and technical failure and thus utter, concentrated chaos. Dipper said alleyways helped disperse magical storms, which Torako was unsure as to the wisdom of, but she wasn't a weather person or a magician. She was just a demonologist.

"Be quiet, dimbolts," a third one hissed. Torako side-shuffled past a couple of alley rats—one was bright purple, must have gotten into some color-change powder at the shop a few blocks down—and sidled up to the gap between the alleys. "Mkell made a mistake, big deal. Maybe it's got enough magical residue on it to at least tide Alû over until we grab something else."

Just a demonologist was turning out to be a _really lucky career plan_ at the moment. Torako eyed the width of the gap, decided she didn't like it, and looked up. If she could climb up the walls, she would—it would sure make for a fucking stunning entry. But there were no good handholds, and she didn't have her special boots on. Pity. She missed jumping off roofs and beating up cultists.

Well, if she couldn't scratch one itch, she was certain to scratch the other soon enough.

"Where's the holly stake? Gotta make sure he's out of order."

Officer Nathan moaned, like the rough squeal of stone on cement. Torako entered the gap without another moment of hesitation, but stepped slowly, carefully.

"Stake's in the bag. And damn, a lot of people have pissed this person off, whoever they are," the shrill one remarked absentmindedly. "Number three? This is getting serial."

"With this money, I don't care," the third one said. Torako slid up against the side of the wall closest to the voices, to lessen the chances of them seeing her. She could hear the zip of a bag being opened. She breathed, in and out, and considered calling Dipper, but—no, Officer Nathan was there, he couldn't know. This close, and he would know. She pocketed her phone, still recording everything going on, and waited.

"Yeah, but two demons? Alû _and_ Xlixlis?"

Torako controlled her breathing. She would not gasp. She was not one of the cliché heroines of her not-so-ironically-beloved-anymore books or teleshows. She was a _professional_. She had a _badge_. And a year of kicking ass mostly solo under her belt.

The fact that the cult had summoned that other demon was frightening, surprising, and set Torako's fingers tight into fists. She swallowed. How the hell did a cult manage to summon Xlixslis and not slowly bring the city down around them? Why did they even risk that?

"Ah, found it," voice one said. The bag zipped shut. Officer Nathan groaned again, and Torako very quietly slid out into the other alley. Alone. Unarmed.

This wasn't a bad idea at all, she told herself. Not at all, she thought, taking in the three figures standing around Officer Nathan. The one with the stake was short, with sandy hair and light complexion. There was a larger figure furthest away, with short fur growing from their elbows and knuckles, eyes set wider apart than most humans. And then there was another, of average height, built thin, hair cropped around chin-length and sporting a muscle shirt that didn't do much for them in the absence of any muscle.

Shorty was raising the stake when they saw her. Torako bent her knees and launched herself at them, grabbing the wrist with the weapon in her left hand before smashing the heel of her palm into Shorty's nose with an audible crunch. Shorty screamed. She twisted their wrist around, sharp, hard, and it snapped. They screamed again, dropped the stake, and she kicked them away from Officer Nathan's prone body.

"Hi!" She said. She stood in front of Officer Nathan, catalogued where he was hurt: head, definitely, and he was holding his side like he'd been slammed by something. His fingers were broken. Torako remembered what the shrill one had said about being low on power, and guessed magic. "You're kind of really breaking the law. A lot. You're arrested. Come with me and there won't be any more broken noses, or wrists, or anything. Nice deal, right?"

"What the actual fuck?!" Shrill said, stepping away. Their fellow cultist, Hairy, stepped forward. They cut a pretty imposing figure in the dim lighting, Torako thought. She didn't move.

"I think you need to leave," Hairy said.

"I think you need to come with me, quietly," Torako said back. She smiled, small, and kept her grip on the stake neither too loose nor too tight.

Shrill tugged on Hairy's sweatshirt sleeve. "You can't let them _leave_ , they've _seen_ us."

"Oh." Hairy tilted their head. "You're right. Sorry. You stumbled on the wrong alley. You can't leave."

Torako raised her eyebrows. "I'm with the police, shitheads."

They were both silent. Shorty's screams died down to whimpers and whines. Torako didn't stop smiling.

"Then you double can't leave," Shrill said. They stepped forward, glancing at the bag to Torako's left and back up at her face. "Triple, even. You gotta die."

"How intimidating," Torako said. "'You gotta die.' Very fear-inspiring." Underneath her, Officer Nathan groaned and curled up a bit. Torako glanced very quickly at the bat next to the bag, and took note of the giant dent that bent it forward about forty degrees. Right, yes, jail, after she shook them down for information. Which was hard to do, because her good-cop-bad-cop routine relied on Dipper as Very Bad Cop. But. But. It would be very satisfying to punch their lights out.

"Guys," Shorty moaned out, words slurred from their collapsed moan. "Guys. This is _number three_."

Torako blinked. "What?"

"What?" Hairy asked.

"You know," Shorty said, tight with pain. They waved at their forehead. "Dumb colored bangs person's friend."

Torako stopped smiling.

"Pathetic whimpering?" Shrill asked. "That person's friend? Wow. Too bad the bodyguard wasn't there that night!"

Torako could feel the fury rising up in her. It set her shoulders stiff, made her fingers tremble, tightened up her throat. _Pathetic. Dumb. Bentley_.

"Oh shit," said Hairy, the only one who seemed to be paying attention to her expression.

Torako said, "You're fucking right," and swooped down to pick up the bat. The dent had caused a couple of sharp ridges to pop up, metal glinting in leftover light. Torako ran a finger over the ridge and sure enough, it tore the skin. She stuck the stake in her back pocket and held the bat in her right hand. It didn't have the same weight as Mizar's. "Now, that was pretty interesting information. You should tell me more. Like: where the _fuck_ did you _take Bentley_."

Hairy crossed their arms, tilted their chin up. Their expression was flat enough that Torako knew they were scared, or at least she hoped they were. "We're not telling."

Torako smiled again, thin and showing the slightest edge of teeth. She swung the bat. "No, I think you want to tell me. I'm giving you a chance you don't deserve, not after assaulting a child, not after taking my _best friend_ from me, not after threatening me and the entire world. No, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Shrill scoffed, and crossed their arms in solidarity with Hairy. "Wow, you sure think highly of yourself. Entire world?"

"Torako, just…" Officer Nathan said, sounding woozy. "Run. Get help."

She should. She should be careful, call for backup, let the police handle things. But Torako was angry. Torako kept thinking about Ethan, the poor Cyclops boy. She kept thinking about Bentley, about his recurring nightmares and the absolute traumatic shitshow it must be to be stuck in one. She kept thinking about Dipper, with both Bentley _and_ herself gone, with nobody there to throw themselves into the dangerous position of voice of reason. As much as he shouldn't rely on them so much, as much as he was growing to rely on others, she knew, she knew, _knew_ the entire country would go up in flames.

She lived in the Californian Island Federation. She knew what happened when Alcor went out of control.

"I'll get help, Officer Nathan," she said. Shrill was now breathing in a way that screamed magic. She couldn't wait for them to try it. "It just might not be the kind anybody here likes, except me."

It was all she could do to keep her breathing steady, because her heart was racing and she was angry, angry, angry.

Shrill made an abrupt gesture. Torako threw the bat over a spell that hit the air a centimeter in front of Tora, and grinned wider at the face Shrill made when the magic didn't connect. She almost laughed when the bat smacked Shrill right in the face a split second later and sent them crashing into the alley wall.

"So nobody wants to do the easy way?" Torako asked. She was met with silence. Hairy looked to be on the edge of rushing her, both their fellow cultists on the ground. She bared her teeth, lifted her finger to the circle sewn into the inside collar of her jacket, and said, "Hey, Dipdops, I've got some company you'd love to meet."

* * *

Bentley dreams.

The dreams run together. He dreams that Torako hates him for being Mizar. He dreams that Dipper and Torako leave him after deciding he's useless. He dreams that Philip realized how bad of a son he was, leaving his father all alone in that apartment and rarely ever coming home. He dreams Dipper devours him, hurts him, smiles wide and sharp the entire time he does so. He dreams that Dr. Fantino stands in front of him and drops a bouquet of orange lilies on his chest, hands burned, and says _This is why I strive to be as logical, as not-emotionally-driven as possible._ He dreams that Meung-soo catches him summoning Dipper, that she renounces him and says that he's a disgrace to his mother's memory. He dreams that a magical storm engulfs the country. He dreams Torako dies without him. He dreams, he dreams, he dreams, and as he dreams he unravels.

Bentley is so tired of dreaming.

* * *

By the time he was called by the familiar tug of his personal circle, Dipper was about five tense minutes away from checking in on Bentley. Maybe three. Dampened anxiety from that end wasn't uncommon, so to say, but every time Dipper'd paid attention to his link with Mizar, it had been anxiety. Fear. But pushed down, dimmed, without direction, and that was a little concerning. The only thing stopping him from blipping out of the Mindscape was a) his short interaction with Soos's mom (Ford, of all people) and b) it had only been a few days since he saw Bentley and Torako last, and c) Torako hadn't notified him of anything yet. So when he felt the personal circle's call, Dipper was out of the Mindscape like a shot—Torako had finally noticed what was up with Bentley.

The alleyway was a bit of a surprise. As were the cultists, the two conscious ones staring up at him in blank horror.

Dipper blinked. "You're getting back into the bashing game now?"

Torako ignored his question. He looked at her and flinched back, just a little, at the awful bruise-black radioactive-green splotches in her aura, at the pink shocks lancing through in a kind of tired _fear fear fear worry guilt fear._

"Torako?"

She smiled at the cultists. It was the nastiest smile he'd ever seen on her face, and everything screamed at him that something was wrong, very wrong. "So! Here's the hard way. No easy way now. Sucks to be you! I was going to be nice, but you took too long."

Behind them, there was a gurgling choke. Dipper looked back, and froze at the sight of Officer Nathan staring at him. At him, eyes black and gold, ears pointed, claws filed to sharpness. At Alcor.

Torako would never summon him in front of a friend who didn't know. She had been so careful, especially after Philip's funeral. He looked back at her. "Torako, what's wrong?"

Her eyes were flat. "Yo, Alcor, these three have some information in their heads they've decided not to part with. I can't understand why! I want to make a deal with you for it."

Dipper noticed her worn hunting jacket, the cuffs frayed, the faded bloodstain on the right shoulder from when she was thrown into some rubble and landed the wrong way on the wrong thing. He noticed her pants, the ones that Bentley stole whenever he was sad and the ones that Torako almost never wore just in case Ben needed them. He noticed Bentley wasn't there.

"Torako," Dipper asked, starting to float a couple inches higher, worry roiling around his gut in a mimicry of humanity, "where is Bentley?"

She finally looked at him. She was so, so angry. "You know, I'd like to know that too. I asked them nicely, but they won't tell me," she looked back at the cultists, "where. They. Took him. So you know what? I'll give you anything you want for that information."

"Torako!" Officer Nathan said behind them. Dipper stared at Torako, wide-eyed. He stared in at her, at her soul, so bright and warm and delicious and he thought about how it would feel in his hand. He could have it, just for some paltry information that he didn't even care—

Dipper paused. He looked at the cultists too. "You…don't know where Bentley is."

"No."

"They do."

"I don't know."

Dipper waited for the next words. When they didn't come, he said, "But?"

"But they're the ones who took him," Torako said. "Thursday night. They summoned Alû. And Xlixlis. And took Bentley away, and the wards were broken, and they called him _pathetic_ , Alcor, they called him _pathetic_."

She was breathing hard, like she was on the edge of a breakdown. Dipper stared at the three cultists. They hadn't moved. Maybe they hoped if they wouldn't do anything, he would forget they were there. Prey instinct, maybe.

Torako didn't know where Bentley was. Alû was involved. Alû, of nightmares. Xlixlis, chaos and shadow, so slippery it was hard for even him to find her. And these cultists were…

"Torako," Dipper said, pushing down all thoughts of blood, of soul, of limbs and years of life. "I want all the Moffios you have in the apartment. I know you've been stockpiling."

Torako stuck out her hand with a short nod, still staring at the cultists. He watched the fingers tremble against each other, numb inside. Then he reached, intertwined her fingers in his, and with a burst of blue the deal was sealed.

Anger and fury overtook him. He didn't let go of her hand, even when the flames vanished. He felt himself growing, felt himself make the alley grow dimmer, darker. The cultists finally tried to run—the two who were conscious—but he just made them stop in their tracks, trapped in their bodies like Bentley was undoubtedly trapped in his. Then he made them turn around and walk back, made it abundantly clear who was in control of this situation.

"Now," he said. "You're going to spill e̤̳̤̩̜v͎͖͈̹̻͍͕er̫͢y͓͓t̗͔͖̹̞h̥͡i̥n͕̭g̳͔̰ ͎̙͔͕̪͈ you know. If you don't, I'll r̞̜ͭi̬̹̻͉̞̬̘̒͠p͍̲̥̞̈́ͮ͗̚͜ͅͅ ̝͊ ĩ͇̳̙̘̪̙̟́ͫͪṭ͔͈͓̹̮͗́̀ ̵͗ o͍͍̣̪ͬ͛͂ư̈͑̑̍ͤt͉̎ͯ̔̾̉̐ ̻͖̯̙̮͍͖͊̉ͥͮ̏̚̕ o̐̈̎͘f̷̟̜̭̞̞̒ͥ̆͂͌́ͪ ̥̅̾̒͌͗̿̚͢ y̘̲ͪ͊͗ͯͯͯo̓u̞̺̗͙̦͋̈r̹̱͉̺̆ͨ͆ͭ ̧̮͎̼͓͎͛ͥ̒̽̉̾̚s̴͇̼̺ͩ͑̒͊̿̚k̓̉u̖̭͖̣͔͇͒͆̃ͭ͆̚͞l̜̙̺̖̆̐̒̐͑̇l̥͔̺͈̂̓ͣṡ̵͈̟̞."

"I want them to live," Torako said. Part of him bristled at what came off as an order. The larger part of him listened. "I want them to live and I want them to regret and I want them to hurt."

"They could ruin you," Dipper said. He thinks about Officer Nathan behind them, and wonders if Torako would be fine with some memory alterations. If she would make a deal for it, a small one, for candy. He wanted her happy.

"Then make them not able," Torako said. She gripped his hand tighter. Her voice shook. "I just want them to suffer."

One of them, the short one with the bloody nose, made a noise. Dipper stared at them—at her, at her, and he smiled, as wide and unnatural and sharply as possible.

"I can do that," Dipper said. He crooked a finger and the short one came closer, legs stiff and jerky. "N̢̘̫̟̼͍̠ͪ͊ͧͨo̠͖͈͟ẘ̸̤͈̜͙̹̯͍͊, I know that my friend here said you can't do the easy way anymore, but it's your l̨̕͝͠u̴̢ć̶͠ḱ̷̢̡y̸̨͜ ̀͟d͏a̵̵͝y̶͞͞! You have two options: the hard way, or the excruciatingly painful way. Which sounds better?"

The short one—her name is Filly, she has a mother and father and a twin brother who works as a fast food manager, who she supports with her accounting job and she wanted more in life, Filly wanted more so she joined a cult and she's always been a little apathetic about some things, so it was fine when they were sacrificing small stuff, like animals, and nobody human had died yet so it was okay. Not even that pathetic human they'd kidnapped a couple nights ago—as far as she knew, he was alive. She was fine, everything was fine. But the short one couldn't even swallow, couldn't cry, couldn't move her mouth. Even if he let her, she'd be too scared to.

Dipper patted her cheek, soft. Torako stood slightly behind him, stiff, a tree with shallow roots in the middle of the hurricane. She was unsteady. She hurt. So. So he had to do it fast, and he made a snap decision.

"Oh, too bad, t̘̦̦͕͕̙̬͖͐͒̋̈̽͋͝i̼̭͇̙͒͞m̨̗͍̂̈̃ͩ͑ͧę͍̫̫̪̺̮͛̀́͆ͮ͑ͤ̕'̴̩͕̈́̉̾̚s̼̖͖̹͖͈̪͓̔̿̈́̏̓͗̀̚ ͧ͐̈͒̒̇͂҉̶̧̙̭̭̼̩̝̖u̮̭̹̳̝ͮ̓̈́̋̀p̡̡̨̩̺͈̝̓̑̂͋ͮ͑͑ͅ," he said. "Plan B it is!"

Then he reached into Filly's head, his hand vanishing up to the wrist into her forehead, and _pulled_.

* * *

Bentley dreams, he dreams, he dreams and dreams and dreams and dreams and when will it end, please just let it end please he doesn't want this anymore, he's so scared his heart has been racing for so long he's surprised he isn't dead he wants to be no no that's not what he wants, he wants, he wants—

where's dipper

where's tora

where are they

where are they

where are they

where

he wants his friends

hes so scared

.

.

.

please

Bentley dreams.

* * *

They knew more, in the ten minutes it took for Dipper to harvest and sort through all the information the cultists had been hiding in their heads. They were trapped there, now. Unable to speak, unable to move. Maybe it would get better with age, but they could do _nothing_ to hurt another person ever again. They couldn't hurt Bentley. They wouldn't touch _a hair on Torako's head_. Dipper had wanted to tie bricks to their feet, grant them the ability to breathe underwater, and then dump them over the deepest part of the ocean when he found out that she was next.

He told her everything, which was:

Apparently, the cultists were paid by an anonymous person. Money for summoning Alû twice: once as a decoy, once for the target, which was Bentley Farkas. Money for summoning Xlixlis, with instructions to hide the presence of the target until it reached its eventual destination, at which point measures would be in place to keep unwanted eyes out. They summoned Alû twice, once with the decoy's name—Freddie, the shrill one, had been frustrated with this one kid's tendency to walk through their lawn on the way to school—and once with Bentley's. Fuck yes Torako, kick Freddie. What a s̨h͜it̸h͝ea͟d͡. Anyways, the schoolkid had been easy for Alû to find, but they ran into a problem with Bentley: the demon couldn't find him.

So, they contacted the client. The client didn't raise a fuss. Actually, instead of demanding they find a location, the client got back to _them_ in less than a week with an address. No, they didn't know who the client was, or how they got the address—the Farkas-Lam-Pines household was off the public registers, ostensibly because Torako was a police employee—and they communicated through a complicated set of proxies. No, they didn't know more, Torako, not even if you punched them—okay, they deserve the punch, go for it.

Go for it again. No, Officer Nathan, this is not exce—look, I promise I won't bite you, just keep resting against that wall. I need to—there's more.

(Dipper didn't want to say the next part, but he did)

Once they got Bentley out of the apartment—lifeless, whimpering, Alû's grip tight on his mind—they took him to a store in the area. Then—the CCTV? Oh, they had somebody loop a minute's worth of feedback everywhere they passed through. Yeah, that's a security issue. Somebody on the inside. I guess your team needs to be looked through. So, back to the store. It's a hardware store, I think Denny's? Fun fact, they used to be a food chain before branching out and eventually losing the food part of the equation. It happened about two hundred, three hundred years ago? Only lasted so long because of a couple enterprising hobbyist demonologists. One of them called me, actually, I—

Sorry. I'll get back on track.

Denny's. They took Bentley to Denny's, and grabbed a specialty order fridge out of the back. The specially ordered fridge was arranged through the client, apparently. They'd broken in and 'stolen' it once, but Naksha there is a Denny's employee, and he was charged with hiding it in the back. They dragged the fridge to the back of a truck, hooked it up to a generator, and. Put Bentley in.

…I know Torako. I know that entering one is dangerous to sentient—I know that Ben doesn't need more PTSD on top of what he already—Torako. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I—I should have been here, I should have stopped this before it started, I should have been there for you and Bentley, I—

I'm _not_ trying to turn this into a pity fest! Yeah. Yeah, I should have been here. I. I got scared, I—this isn't the best time or place, okay? Don't look at me like that, we're in public, and the only reason this party hasn't been broken up is that the cultists set up some fuc҉k̀ing҉ ͜ strong barriers to stop sound and magical signatures from getting out. So let's wrap this up, okay?

That's as far as it goes. They don't know where the truck went, they don't remember what it looked like aside from nondescript because there were some enchantments on the thing, they don't know the client's name, or the truck driver's name, or the name of the person who commissioned the fridge or anything. They just found out today that you were the next victim. And if à̪͓̩ͭ̄̍n̴͓̺̳̘y̤͈̬̞̬͒ͮͫ͝ ̮̠̝̞̬ͨ̿̎͐̿̈́ͣ of them try to do anything to you, I will r̵̲͉͖͈̜̗̙͖̐͋ͭ̍ͭͪ̎į̜̫͖͎̜̰̯̇͂̇ͭ́p̧͔̖̭̙̩ͮ͗ͣ͠ ̨͎̬̫͚ͪ̓̃t̙̱̯͚͍͔̖̻ͦ͋̆ͥ̿̄͐͊͠h̴̭̠͂̆ͪ̃͐e͇̞̻̣̫ͯ̊́m̷̼̖̓̽ ̵̰̠̉͛̏̅̔̾̿͗͢a͂̀̇ͧ͏̴̫͍̩̻̘̹̻p̢̭̰̳̳ͥ̊a̛͖̜̤̥̠̒̐̏ͮ͐́̀͞r̷̬̜̬̄ͯ̎̔ͭ̔͂ͬ̏t̬ͬ̏́ͅ, te͠a̧r͘ thei͠r v҉er͏y͡ ṣ̸̤͖̥̪̦͋ͯ̔ͧ̍́͐̀͜͠ͅo̗͖̬̝̹͍̬̗͎̱̘̫͈͕̝̥̜ͤ̇̌͐ͬ͐ͥ̓ͫ͂̿͐̐̅̓ͮ͐̓̀͞ư̪̹̖̓̉ͫ̆͑̃̀̈́̎̎͑͞ḽ͖͖̮͔͇͖͔͉͈̪̩̫͉̖̍ͪͮͩ̕͜͝ͅsͩͮ̈͐͏̛͙̬͈͈̗̹̪͙͓̺̣̥͇̪̗̖̯̟̼́ ̴̫͕͔̰̮̘͚̯̤̟̞̰̣͙͕̀̋ͬ̔̌ͯ̏͊̋͜ͅ and h̔̐̐ͭ́ͩ͑̄̔̋̍ͨͥ͗̏́͂̓̒̕͟҉̝̱̳̟͈͈̤̗̮̖̥̹̺͚̘̦ͅu̔͐͗ͮͪͥ̈̉́͏̡̬͙̻͉̖͍̮͖͉n̡̧̯̮͎͇͖̖͕͚̥͍̟̱̗̲̏ͬ̐̌ͨ͛͛̂͟͡͞t̴̢̘̜̟̥͕͇͖͚̻̫͖̥̩̮͎̰̯͎̳̏ͯ̓̽̊̽ͮ͛̚̚͘͘ ̦̹͕̬͙̪̟͊͛̋͌ͣ͂̑͛̃̀̏ͫ̆̾̓͗̀t̮̯̲̲̻̜̘͙̼͙̤͖̫̘̦̭̼̊̉ͦ̄̓ͯ͐̾ͩͮ̌̊́h̸̨̨̯͎̱͖̦͓͕͓̲͚̯̔ͪ́̈̍ͧ̎ͯ͡͞ę̸̳͕͎̟̠̻̫̳̺͈̱͕̺̻̬̩̔̓͒̓͗ͮͩ̈ͭ͗͐̇̈͊̿mͥͭͩ̆ͦͥ͋̎ͤ̉̌ͨͬͭ̌͗̕͏̦̫̩̬̬͎͡ ̷̴̶̤̰̻̟͎̩̯̳͛͋ͤ͂̆ͫͥ̉ͪͪͪͯͫ́̅̏ͯ̉̉͘͡ͅd̴̢͚̻̰͇͐̔̊ͣ̇̿̌̕͡͞o͕͖̼̻̠͓͚̰̟͖͆͛̑̆ͮ̂ͨ̾̀̈ͧ̆͊͒͊̆́̕͝͞ͅw̛̗̣̲̙̹͓͙͔͙̳̹̝̘͎̩͈͇̑̈́ͯ̋͞͡͞ͅn̷̡̨̹̘͓̪͔͈͙ͦͭ̓ͮͥ̋̃͌̎̎ͭͣ̽ͪ̈́̆̀ ̵̸̢̬̳̦̰̼̹̪̯̭̾͗̋͂ͥ́̑͂͛͘͡i̸̠̥͉͉̣̯̦̺̳͋̋̃̅͛̅̌́́́n̸̵̵̩͈̙͕̲̦͉͓͙̞͚͇͍̱͈̊̆͆̍ͬ̏ͣ̈ͯ͑͗ͧͩ̉̈́̈ͯ̚͟͡ ̢̠̭͇͙̟̯̲͕̮͍̦̣̙ͫͦ̇͛ͥ̏̚͢ͅt͑̓ͯͧͭ̓̏͋ͣ͡҉҉̻͇̺̞͖̼̪̘̗͇̲͖̹̯͈̪͙̠͇h̉͑̇͑̉̿̒̈́͆̊̽̚͏̣̘̳̬̩̺̖͟ͅe̺͖̫̟͎̬̣̬̤ͥ̈͌̂͌͂ͭͬ͐̎ͩ͑̓̂͊̄͊͟͞ị̴͔̤̺̗͋͌̿͌̓́̋ͨ̾̾̂̍̉͑́́r̢̢̛̩̞͕̹͍̱͇̹ͬ̈̈͗ͣ̌͟͟ —

Wait, say that again? Uh-huh. So why did they target you? Desperation. I'm surprised you're talking to me, Officer Nathan. It basically comes down to the efforts to keep magical pets inside, and for magical persons to travel in groups of two or more. They were getting nervous. Alû took a lot of energy getting through Bentley's sigils, and demanded more for Torako. I'm going to _eat_ that upstart shitt̨y͞ ̧l͟it̡t͞le d̢emon, who thinks they can take what is m̴͢i͟͞ń̛̛͢͜e̷̶͡, they're m͒̈́ḭ͎͎̯̳͉̇͊̿͌n̡̳̩̯̟̗̘̰ͮ̚e̸̿͛̇̓ͬ̆ and n̩͓̆̉ŏ̸̱̯̺͈̹̓͌t̯̱̹̟̜̻̺̤͒͑ͪ́͞h̅̓̓ͨ͏͏̳̹͈̭̤̲͍i̸̷͉̜ͧ̐ͭ̈͑̑ͥ̈́̕n̨̧̥͇͍͉̪͖̈́̋̽̾̂̾̆͠g͈̭͙̺͎̻̓ͧͯͦͬ̏͑͂̕ ͪ͛́̏͂͊̅͒҉̨̮̟̠ wil͘l m̡ak̶e̶ t͏h͞at̨ ̵ḿi̵stàke̢ ę̛̙̜̞̣͍̪̖̠̤̞̳͑ͯͨͦ͋̽̓̓́̄͒ͬ̽̆̇ͪ̚͜͝͡v̍ͣͧͪ͋͋ͧ́̐̄ͯ̑͌̉͂͌́ͦ͆͘͜͏̸̷̮̹͍̰̞͉̥̗̦̗̥̜̗̣e̴̵̩̩͈̗͕͇̬̗̩̲̠͍̬͋ͮ̂ͫ͂͊͐ͮͨͪ̊ͫ̏̉͋ͥ͟͝r̸̷̛͍̲̟͆̈͆ͦͦ͐̋̇ͥ̌͆̓ͬ͋ͅ ̻͙̥̥͓͔͖̳̩̙̹ͦ̆̑̌ͤ̿ͪ̐̎ͦ̏̋͜͞ą̪̯̦̺̖̟̮͐ͬ͐̎̿̈ͣ͘g̛̰̟̳̠̩̝̪͈̯͆̈̐̾̊̅̅̌̉ͭ̉̋͆̆̀͢ͅă̶̢̧̛̹͇̱͔̥̱͚̟ͤ̇̀ͨ̋͟ǐ̢̐͗̊ͨ͑͆̆҉͖͈͕̹̥̞͚̞͎̭̘̺̞̠̻͝n̟̗̦̲̏́ͭ͋̈́̃́̀͢.

: and then, Torako tugged on his ponytail to make him stop speaking because Officer Nathan looked ready to pass out in fear. She looked like shit, but there she was, making sure he was decently civilized in the face of people who were meeting him for the first time. People who recognized him for the very dangerous, highly volatile demonic being he was, thank _fuck_ there were still people with sense in the world.

Then, Officer Nathan looked straight at Torako, and said in a quiet, rasping voice, "You can't. I can't let you stay on the force. Not like this."

* * *

Bentley is dreaming.

Bentley is.

Is he? Is this

existence? If it is then bentley

bentley isn't sure he wants to exist, not when dipper is

whispering in his ear, all the things he wants to do

how he wants to taste bentley's soul

again, how delicious

it would taste between his teeth

how bentley is a mizar

who doesn't deserve to be mizar

he's too quiet

too sad

too serious

it would be better if torako was

and bentley hears torako say

that she regrets ever talking to him

she wishes

she wishes she could have her parents back

in her life, that

just because bentley

doesn't have his father anymore

doesn't mean torako should have to live without hers

she has two

she wants them both

she doesn't want bentley

anymore, if it was a choice between philip

and bentley she would

she would

she

bentley feels philip behind him

feels his father

can't turn around

he

he wants

he wants to see his father

he wants his father

father

father

papa

please

bentley doesn't want to dream anymore

bentley doesn't want to be anymore

but

bentley is

and he dreams.

* * *

Honestly, Torako saw it coming.

"So you really are kicking me out," she said. She was drained. She was so tired. She wanted to lay down and sleep and forget everything, forget her rash actions (even if she had to save Officer Nathan) and forget the consequences (she had been so angry) and forget that Bentley was gone and they'd shoved him in a _stasis fridge_ —

She wasn't going to go there. Not now.

"You have to understand," Officer Nathan rasped, blinking slowly. They really needed to get him medical help. "I can't. This job, with you, with him in your back pocket."

Torako laughed. She wanted to cry, but she laughed instead. "Yeah. A demonologist with Alcor the Dreambender in their back pocket? I'd muck things up. Throw the validity of my work into question."

Next to her, Dipper bristled. "Listen," he said, "plenty of officers in the past have relied on my help, and none of their cases were ever—"

"Maybe then," Officer Nathan said, still looking at Torako. "But now? It's barely been a decade and a half since incidents regarding the Dreambender have died down. I can't let you stay, Torako."

Torako gave in to the impulse to sit down. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and tried to focus, tried to figure out what it was she was supposed to do. But her thoughts were a storm, scattered, incohesive, ripped apart and unsettled by everything. By Bentley's disappearance and the situation surrounding it. By the cultists, their screams and their faces as Dipper tore memories out of their heads. By Dipper's absence. By his presence. By Officer Nathan, the assault on him, and how he was now one of the very few that knew the truth about Tyrone. Torako felt like her mind was being pulled a dozen different directions, down a hundred different paths all at the same time. She couldn't think. She couldn't plan. All she could do was breathe.

Dipper, apparently, was better at compartmentalizing than she was, and she felt a stab of frustration and anger. Dipper, who left. Dipper, who came back too late, who came back right on time. Torako, in her storm of thoughts, had the clear realization that she didn't like being the one left behind, that she never wanted to be left _behind_ again.

"What about her schooling?" Dipper asked. "This internship was her entire last year, what is she supposed to do now?"

She heard Officer Nathan sigh. Torako didn't care about the answer. At the same time, she wanted to cry at all her work, all her effort, gone in a rush of anger and desperation. "I…I don't know. I can say that the disappearance of her partner has left her too distraught to keep up with the rigor of this internship. Torako has done good work, up until now, the school might make allowances. They might not."

She might not _graduate_. How the fuck was she supposed to explain that to her dads? Then she realized how stupid that thought was in the wake of Bentley being gone, and refocused on breathing. In, and out. In, and out. She would be calm, Torako would be calm, she _would be_.

"So you won't tell them, then," Dipper asked.

"I won't lie in a court of law," Officer Nathan said. "But I won't volunteer the information. Not after…not after everything Torako has done for us. Me."

But not enough to let Torako stay. Not enough to make sure she could graduate, for sure. Not enough to—

Torako pulled her palms from her face and looked at them. They were soft. So soft. She'd gotten used to desk work over the past year, gotten used to investigation and curse-breaking and everything that was the opposite of her gap year experience. She'd gotten soft. She'd stopped being so lonely. She'd started seeing school as important even beyond being near Bentley again, and now? Bentley was gone.

Her mind snapped to one path. Bentley was gone. What reason was there to stay?

"Right," Dipper said, cold. "Of course. That's the logical conclusion, after Torako has literally saved your life. Has helped directly solve four cases, or was it more? I can't remember. Could you remind me?"

Silence. Torako didn't care, she was thinking, she could _think_.

If she didn't have to go to work, she had time. If Bentley were home, if Dipper were around, it would be devastating. It still was, a little. But Bentley was gone. Nobody knew where he was. The cultists couldn't remember the truck's appearance, or plate, or identification. They didn't know the client's name. They didn't know where the stasis fridge came from.

Torako stiffened at the realization.

"What an honorable person you are, Nathan Akuapem," Dipper said quietly.

"Look who's talking," Officer Nathan said, an edge to his tone that didn't come from the pain in his head. "I don't think a _demon_ can lecture me on honor."

"I don't pretend to have any," Dipper lied. Torako wanted them to shut up, thinking over and over the glimmer of hope they had for finding Bentley. She thought—it could be viable. She hoped it was viable, because if Dipper didn't know where Bentley was now, then—

"I understand," Torako said. She looked up. "Really, I get it. Thank you for—for not reporting me."

Officer Nathan looked at her like he wasn't sure what to think anymore. It hurt, but she'd half expected it to happen, so it wasn't the blow it could have been. He nodded.

"Do you think you could do me one last favor?"

"Torako, you've worked so hard for this, what—"

"Dipper. Shut up." Torako didn't even look at him. This was too important. She needed Officer Nathan to agree to this. She had to be able to do this as legally as possible, because she didn't want to alienate her friend any more than she already had.

Dipper shut up.

Officer Nathan blinked, then said, "I can't make any promises."

Torako locked eyes with him. "I just need clearance to ask about the fridge that was stolen. Manufacturing details. Order details. There might be something there. Or if you don't trust me to do that, please, have somebody else look into it and just forward me the information. Please." Torako fought to remain dry-eyed.

Officer Nathan closed his eyes. He breathed. He was silent.

" _Please_."

After a long, long pause, he said, "Okay. I'll have Officer Zala look into it tomorrow, and I'll forward the information to you."

Torako breathed out, and with that breath she released tension she didn't realize she was holding. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

He sighed. "You're going after him, aren't you."

"Of course I am," Torako said. "He's my partner. He's my family. He means—he means more than anything to me."

Dipper set a hesitant hand on her shoulder. She let him. They stayed there, in the alleyway, just breathing in silence. The slightly damp, warm air, the odd quality of demonic energy that was both unnerving to something deep in Torako, but also familiar, like a warm bathrobe after a long bath.

Finally, Torako said, "Let's get you to the hospital, Officer," and stood up on aching feet, because she had to.

* * *

be n t ley dr e am s

he he he

doesn't

wa nt to

drea m

 _bentley is fucking sick of all this fucking dreaming he's going to f u ck in g_

torako

cruel

her her words are

 _torako would never say those things she would never f uckin th e m this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong this is wr o n_

dipper

d ' t lov e h im

a ny mo re he doesn't wan t bent le y

 _this is wrong this is more than his brain us does it's har d t it's hard but bentley is_

 _Bentley is Sick as Fuck of Dreaming. This is Wrong. Dipper love s hi m he_

nothing

uu m o hi n g

crushing

him

suffocating

him

nothing

noth i n g

no t h in g

dipper did this

 _and Dipper fuckin lo gized he apologized HE APOLOGIZED and_

 _it was bentley's fault too_

 _this is wrong, he knows this already why is this h a pp e n in g something is_

 _wrong_

 _wrong_

 _g_

bentley dre a m s

and be n tl e y is tire d _sick as fuck_ of _this is wrong this is wrong_

he's dreaming

* * *

Torako got the text at three the next afternoon. Sunday afternoon, when she and Bentley would usually be lounging about, needling each other to do chores that neither of them wanted to do.

Instead, Torako got up early. She went on a run. She cleaned the apartment, top to bottom. Left the fridge alone. She pulled out Bentley's art supplies for when he got back, pulled out all the nightlights they had in storage, made sure all the clothes were clean and ready to be zapped warm for maximum comfort. She pulled her hunting gear out of storage, put on her old charmed boots. Bought a new bag. Packed clothes, packed food, packed money and her international travel permit just in case.

She packed Bentley's favorite sweater, yarn mismatched in places where he'd fixed it. She packed his second favorite for herself, because. Because.

"Your phone chimed," Dipper said. He'd been quiet. They'd both been quiet. She didn't like it, but she wasn't sure how to start untangling her feelings, let alone spin them into words.

"I know," she said. She finished setting magnets into the backpack, then fixed the sigils Bentley had made into them. They were old, from her hunting days, and newer ones would be stronger, but Bentley wasn't there. Torako was, and she could make sigils, but it felt wrong to replace them before they were dead.

Just in case, she packed supplies to make extras. Then, only then, did she pick up the phone and navigate to Officer Nathan's text.

There were two pictures attached. The first was a compilation of screenshots regarding the information about the fridge. She scanned it, then saved the picture to a new locked folder called BUNNY BOY. Hopefully if her phone was taken, the people would just assume it was mildly embarrassing porn she'd saved.

The second picture was of Officer Nathan, hooked up to special IVs. Hepsa was next to him, in a wheelchair. She'd left last night, after Torako told her what had happened Torako offered to bring her to the hospital, but Hepsa said she would take a cab. That it would be better to take a cab, Tyrone had just come home, Torako should spend time with him.

Torako had let her. She hadn't told her more. That was up to Officer Nathan. Who had, it seemed, attached an actual message to the images.

 _She means more than anything to me, too. Good luck._

It took a few moments for the significance of the message to sink in. Torako smiled a little, even though everything felt a little dull, and pocketed the phone.

"Well?" Dipper asked. He'd demolished the Moffios out of her sight, thankfully, but sometimes she saw marshmallow bits caught between his teeth. She would give up all the Moffios in the world if she thought it would get her Bentley back.

"A city in North Africa," Torako said. "Some coastal place called Parakou,."

Dipper made a face. "Benin isn't even that far north, why is it called North Africa now?"

Whatever _Benin_ was. "Beats me." Torako tilted her head. Then, she did that shrugging thing Dipper was so fond of, just to see him smile. Bentley had adopted it more than she had, but. But. Bentley wasn't here.

But she was going to get him. She was going to find him. And they were going to come home.

"So what'll you give me to power this international trip?" Dipper asked. There was a gleam in his eye that Torako didn't like, that Torako knew he couldn't help. She let it be.

"I think," she said, pulling out a bag of gummy worms, "that these'll do the trick, right?"

Dipper grinned wide. Torako did her best not to think about the cultists. She hadn't watched any news that day just to make sure she didn't know what had happened to them, after they'd been left in that alley. "It's a deal."

He reached out with hone hand. She placed the gummy worms in it, and then shook. Blue demonfire raced up her palm, making her skin tingle and the hair on her arms stand up.

"But before we go," Dipper said, pulling a patch of material from thin air, "I think you should carry this around. Just in case."

Torako took the patch, rubbed a thumb against its familiar, warm edge. She smiled, sharp, and slapped the embroidered image of Mizar's bat on the wrist of her left jacket sleeve. The enchantments took, stuck the patch to the fabric, and Torako felt ready. She pulled on the backpack. She put on her cap. She rolled her shoulders, stood up straight.

"Let's go," she said. In the space between breaths, they were gone, the apartment was empty, and nobody was any wiser. In ten other places, identical demonic signatures flared, forming a perfect circle. At the epicenter was Timothy Janning's home. That home had a basement. The basement had candles, and chalk, and a dozen assorted magical creatures ready to be sacrificed.

Timothy Janning was arrested two days later.

* * *

Bentley dreams

 _he fights_

He dreams of things like being hated, of hating himself, of being abandoned and left behind and mocked for it

 _but his friends, his father, none of them would say those things and this is w ro ng this is wrong he fights_

He cannot stop crying

 _there cannot be this many tears in even a dream, bentley would know, he would know_

He can barely breathe

 _if bentley fights, and fights, and fights, he can feel a pressure on his chest, on his entire body, like time is standing still and something is wrong_

He can barely think

 _especially if he fights a little, but if he fights a lot coherency returns and he feels an unsettlingly familiar, an unsettlingly unfamiliar sensation crawling along his skin, less physical than mental but real and wrong_

But he keeps dreaming

 _he keeps fighting, in fits, where he drowns and resurfaces and drowns and resurfaces and  
d ro w n s_

He dreams

 _he's so sick of dreaming_


	7. Meung-soo Entertains some Visitors

**Chapter 6: Meung-soo Entertains some Visitors**

In their haste, both Dipper and Torako forgot about the existence of time zones.

"I can't believe we didn't think about the fact it was nighttime here," Torako muttered as they sat in a public park. In the distance, Torako could hear the ocean—similar enough to soothe, off enough to unsettle. "Aren't you the all-knowing demon?"

"I forgot," Dipper said. He had on the hazy semblance of human skin, tight enough around the edges that Torako wasn't at all fooled by it. But in the cover of night, to somebody who didn't know him, Dipper might be taken for mortal. "I don't usually have to think about time zones."

"All-knowing," Torako insisted. She kicked the dirt path in front of them, glared at the public gardens surrounding a swatch of grass in the center. Some plant across the way was literally glowing, and she didn't know if it was magically induced or just bioluminescence.

Dipper didn't have anything to say to that. When Torako looked over at him, he had brought his knees up to his chest and was staring out at the garden. _Oh no_ , Torako thought. _There he goes_.

"I shouldn't have left," Dipper said. "If I hadn't left, Bentley wouldn't be gone."

Torako sighed. She leaned back against the bench and stared up past the canopy of trees into the sky. "Probably," she said. Torako watched the stars flicker, trembling under the weight of the universe's enormity. She felt it press on her. She was too tired for this.

But she couldn't be. She couldn't be. Her boys depended on her.

Predictably, Dipper had curled up tighter into himself. Torako wondered if he'd be alive to see the lights of some of those stars go out, millennia after they'd already passed. She wondered if he knew which ones were already gone in that moment. She almost wanted to know.

Instead of asking, she ran a hand through her hair and said, "You know, the same could be said of me. I could have been there that night, hypothetically. Then the cultists would have had a damn hard time getting Bentley out in the first place."

"Torako, you were saving a kid. I was just—doing nothing."

"Hiding," Torako said, because it was the truth and she was tired. Dipper flinched. She closed her eyes and breathed in, breathed out. "It's okay. You do that sometimes. You couldn't have known it was a bad time."

For a while, Torako just let herself exist in the moment, in the tense silence between them. The breeze was cool on her skin, the air just salty enough to remind her of home, while lacking the tumultuous energy thrumming in the space between atoms. Parakou hadn't always been a coastal city, but it hadn't been created by demonic forces either.

"All-knowing," Dipper said, quietly. Then, he laughed a little.

Torako thought about reaching out and pulling him close. Then she breathed, in and out, and stood up.

"Sitting here isn't doing us any good," she said. "And I'm on a completely different timezone, so sleeping isn't going to do me any good either. Let's scope out the factory."

Dipper stared up at her and then stood himself, so smooth she knew he was slipping, that his grasp on humanness was falling between the fingers of his control. "All right," he said. "Do you want to blip, or walk?"

"Walk," Torako said. She hefted the bag on her back, and looked to the entrance of the park, where a couple people were entering, giggling all the while. "I think we need the air."

So they walked, navigating the busy streets of Parakou with only a couple turnarounds. Torako was nearly tempted by a couple of hole-in-the-wall restaurants, but she figured that eating could happen after they found the factory. Then, sleep, as much as she could.

She had a thought, and tilted her head at Dipper walking beside her. "When we find Bentley," she said, "what do we do? Will he even be able to go home right away?"

Dipper broke stride a little, but caught back up a moment later. "What do you mean?"

"The nightmares," Torako said. She worried at the cuffs of her jacket with her fingers. They moved more into the crowd of people to avoid a remote fire station, set into the ground and blinking slow, blue light.

"Oh," Dipper said. He thought for a while, and spoke up once there were just a few less people. "You're right. He's not going to…really want to see me, is he?"

Torako considered that. "I think we should give him more credit than that," she said, slowly. "I think…he's not going to be in a good place once we find him, but this is Bentley. He'll know us. He'll want to see us."

"But not blip home," Dipper said. His hands flexed by his sides. She could see the image of his fingernails wavering, shimmering in the streetlights of the city. Then the image steadied, and Dipper looked her in the eye, brown irises flickering dimly into gold and back again. "You don't have his travel permit."

"He's been listed as a kidnapped person," Torako said. "If-When we find him. When we find him, the authorities aren't going to care about how he entered the country without it as long as he leaves safely."

Dipper pressed his lips together. They passed a chain department store and waited at the crosswalk to cross the street. "He's going to need a hospital."

"Probably." Torako stared at the other side of the street, at the throng of people there. She felt the people all around her and felt suddenly claustrophobic, but pushed the feeling down.

"And a therapist."

The light turned green. They began to cross, and Torako was hyperaware of all the people around them. She chose her words carefully. "That might be…difficult."

Dipper bumped into somebody, apologized, and turned his attention back to her. His hair was moving a little oddly in the air, but he didn't seem to notice at all. "Doctor-patient confidentiality exists," he said.

"You really think it would in this case?" Torako said. "It could be brought to the Federation's attention. We're still citizens. We can still be tried by their laws."

A gaggle of teenagers passed by, laughing loudly and giggling at something they were watching. Torako wanted, in a fit of irrational frustration, to reach over and teach them a lesson about situational awareness.

"Then we find him someone who wouldn't breathe a word," Dipper said, quietly. She felt his hand brush hers, probing. She didn't know if she wanted to take it.

"How would you do that?" Torako asked. "You can't force anybody to do something they don't want."

They turned right at the next corner. Torako fished out her phone and they retreated to a wall to make sure they were heading in the right direction after all. She input the address and frowned. They'd made a wrong turn, but it wasn't a disastrous mistake.

"I've known a lot of people," Dipper said, quietly, hesitantly, like he didn't want to speak but was making himself. "There might be someone who has that training."

"And speaks the language?" Torako asked. They reentered the crowd. "And is willing? And discreet? And not scared of…you know?"

Dipper was silent.

"I know that…you knew them, once. But they're not going to be the same people." Torako stared straight ahead. "Left at the light."

Dipper was silent, still. When she looked over, his chest was perfectly still and his eyes were shut, even though he kept moving. Torako looked down at his hands, curled into fists, the nails hidden. She felt a flutter of guilt in her chest.

At the crosswalk, she reached out and brushed the back of her hand against his. He jolted, and the light turned green even as the air crackled between them in his surprise, and she reached out again.

He took her hand. His movements were slow, like he was scared to scare her, or maybe like he thought she'd move away if he wasn't careful enough. As they walked, his fingers slotted in the gaps between hers. She squeezed them. He pressed closer.

"I'm just saying that you can't promise it," she said. "And that it's not fair to treat them like the people you once knew."

Dipper nodded. They stepped up onto the curb.

"I can try," he said. In the moment, she knew he meant it, so Torako nodded at him and pressed back a little, to let him know she had heard and understood. But as they kept walking, she began to wonder. She wondered if push came to shove, if Bentley was suffering, what Dipper would do. Would he force the issue? Would he manipulate the situation so that the therapist, whoever they were, had to comply and had to keep their mouth shut?

Then she wondered, as they moved ever closer to the factory, what she would do. If Bentley was suffering, if Bentley needed help long after this ordeal was over. Would she help Dipper find somebody and make them? Would she threaten, bribe, make a deal to keep their mouth shut? Torako listened to the background noise of a thousand feet hitting the ground, of vehicles thrumming over the pavement, their engines a low hum that barely registered loud enough to be heard at the speed they were going. Torako pulled Dipper left again, then straight a couple blocks, then right, caught up in the questions in her own head.

She wanted to say she wouldn't. But if she was honest with herself, she didn't know that her desperation wouldn't lead her to a decision that would follow her the rest of her life. If it was a choice between Bentley's wellbeing and that of a stranger's? Even if Bentley was against it himself?

By the time they got to the factory and stepped out of the shifting crowds around them, she still didn't know what she would do.

"The lights are still on," Torako said. "Night shift?"

"Probably," Dipper said. He still held her hand. It was getting a little sweaty and uncomfortable, but Torako let him. "Some people like to work at night more."

"Some people are more desperate to work at night," Torako said. "It pays more."

Dipper shrugged. "Well, it works out in our favor, so I'm not going to split hairs." He stepped forward to the entrance, tugging Torako behind him.

"Why would you even split hairs? That makes no sense, what does hair have to do with this?" Torako hurried to be side-to-side with him—better to present a united front, where they were taken as equals from the get-go—and smiled a little as Dipper spluttered.

"I—you—it's just a turn of phrase, okay?"

She reached for the door and looked at him. "But seriously, why would you split hairs? What does it mean?"

He rolled his eyes. She rolled hers back at him, and watched him puff up. "It means that I'm not going to make mountains out of molehills," he said.

She opened the door. "Mountains, molehills and hairs? What does this have to do with how much fish the fishery down the road didn't catch yesterday?"

Dipper spluttered even more, and they stepped into the lobby of the factory. It was clean, all precisely curved corners and soft shades of pastel. The air smelled slightly salty, and maybe a little flowery, but it was a pretty nice scent all things considered. The better a factory was, the cleaner it was, and this one seemed pretty top-notch. But most lobbies were clean, Torako figured, because that's where everybody came who wasn't a worker.

The person at the desk stood up from their chair. They said something. Dipper said something back, and their expression went a little funny, like he had said something weird.

"What did you say?" Torako asked in a low whisper. Dipper grimaced back.

"They're laughing at my accent, probably," he mumbled. "All-knowing apparently means antiquated speech patterns."

Torako thought back to when she'd first met Tyrone, and snickered. "Old fart," she said.

"Shut up."

The person's ears flicked, and then next time they spoke it was in Standard American English, even if there was a bit of an accent present. "I hear you want an information?"

"Oh!" Torako let go of Dipper's hand to step closer to the desk. "Yes. I'm looking into a stasis fridge that was commissioned here, order…give me a moment please," she said, as she brought up the correct file on her phone. "Right. Order Z-93 4A36. I just needed to know who commissioned it, or talk to the person who took the commission?"

Immediately, the person's expression changed into that blank, fake-polite one that customer service agents always got when they knew a client wouldn't like what they were about to say.

"I'm very sorry," the person said, "but this…this place's normal way is not giving any important information. That is an important information."

Torako did not like that answer. But she wasn't a bitch, so she tried to explain. "I'm only asking because I'm investigating a kidnapping, and we have reason to believe that the refrigerator commissioned here is connected to that case."

The person gasped, and covered their mouth with one furry hand. "Oh no," they said. "I'm very sorry. Do you have papers? I can call my boss if you have papers."

Torako smiled. She was screaming inside. She shouldn't have forgotten that going the legal route always involved paperwork. All the paperwork. That she didn't have. "Of course," she said, weakly. "I don't have physical copies, but I have digital paperwork."

She did. It was just a copy of the order, from the store itself. Maybe it would be enough to convince the poor person that they could go in. Otherwise they'd leave and break in later. Torako didn't want to break in.

A door opened, and a burly human entered the area behind the lobby desk and rattled off a sentence. The person in front of them nodded, then gestured to Dipper and Torako and said something else. Torako watched them have a short conversation, and noticed the moment Dipper slid his hand back into Torako's. Her eyes narrowed. He was stiff. Something was wrong.

The burly human looked at them. "Hello," they said. "I hear you ask about order Z-93 4A36?"

"Yes," Dipper said. "It's connected to a kidnapping."

The human stared at them both, gaze flitting from one to the other. Then they bit the side of their mouth, the cheek hollowing just a little bit with the motion. "You need to come with me," they said. "I was in charge of Z-93 4A36. You have fridge papers?"

Torako pulled them up on her phone and swiveled it to show the human over the counter. "You're going to tell us?"

"Colette!" The person said. They rattled something off in whatever language was spoken there. Torako couldn't remember.

Colette finished scanning the document on the screen, then patted the person on the back and replied. Whatever the reply was, it calmed the person down enough that the fur around their neck began to relax from its bristled position.

"Okay," The human said. They pressed a button on the counter that let them pass through, and gestured to a door opposite the desk. "In that room, please."

Torako glanced at Dipper to see if he was showing any signs of an imminent trap. Instead, he was staring at Colette, eyes kind of glazed over though thankfully still human. Just in case, Torako nodded at the human and brought Dipper's face towards her, angling herself so that nobody else could see his eyes. "You there, Ty?"

He blinked, once, twice, and his eyes began to bleed back to normal until he actually recognized her. "Tora?" He asked.

"Come," Colette said again. They had reached the door.

"Let's go get that information, okay?" Torako rubbed her thumb up and down his cheek. He was still holding her other hand. "You all there now?"

Dipper closed his eyes and leaned forward. She let him rest against her shoulder while he got himself under control. Part of her wanted to shove him away. Part of her wanted to pull him closer. She stood, pulled between the two desires, and let him do what he needed. Eventually, Dipper pulled away.

"You okay?" Colette asked from across the room. The sound echoed slightly, from the tall, pastel-purple ceilings. Torako looked up to see that the ceiling had been enchanted to look like a sunny window.

"Yeah," Dipper said back. "Just—had a moment. Sorry."

He squeezed her hand tight, and they entered the room after Colette together. When the door shut behind them, it did not lock, and Torako relaxed. She still took the room in.

Small round table in the center with plenty of chairs. Probably useful enough as barriers to wait any kind of barrage out, and the chairs looked light enough to throw. There was a drink machine set into the wall, humming white noise into the room. At the end of the room, there was a panel that acted as a clock, and an enchanted window that in reality lead to nothing, probably, but made it seem like they were in the mountains.

Colette sat down. They waved their hand. "Please sit."

Torako and Dipper sat, Dipper closer to the door. Colette stared at them, and then bridged her fingers and set her chin on them.

"I know some things about the order," they said. "But not all. I think not even commissioner know all the things. So be patient, yes?"

"Of course," Torako said. "Please, tell us what you know."

Colette huffed. "I save worst for last, okay? Now. This was odd commission. Custom design, never seen before, but very strange and I do not much like strange. Stasis design allows people in fridge, and I do not agree but boss told me to go ahead. Very expensive commission. So I made fridge."

"Do you know who made the custom design?" Torako leaned forward on the table. She then swiped her phone notepad open and pulled the pen from its dimensional pouch. "Can I take notes?"

"Yes, write. Or if you want, you can record. It is not much." Colette looked down their strong nose and then sighed. "Do what is need—you need. Do what you need."

"Thank you." Torako thumbed on the recording app, but began to take notes anyways. "Please continue."

"Okay. Who made commission. This is also strange. Commissioner have client too. Said, this fridge is not for them. Their design. Their order, but it is not for them, not even present. Very strange. Do not like. Still made."

Torako made a few notes, and looked at the other's face. It was a little tight. Their fingers were now set on the table, and the topmost thumb kept stroking the top of the other thumb. They were nervous. Torako jotted that down too.

"Do you have a name?" Dipper asked, at last. "Of the client, or the commissioner?"

Colette bit their lip. "I do not know client's name," they said, slowly. "Only commissioner. And the commissioner want you to know."

The hair stood up on the back of Torako's neck. "Is that the bad news?"

"Maybe," Colette said. "She said if you are who she thinks, then it is."

Dipper sat up straight. His eyes were wide, and Torako knew without having to see inside his head that his brain was working at lightyears a second, or some ridiculous measurement that was unattainable by mortal beings.

"Is there anything else first, then?"

Colette nodded. They pressed down on the table, and it whirred out a small piece of paper and a pen. They wrote something down, then folded the paper in half to slide it across the table. Torako took it, and opened it. It was an address.

"This is where the commissioner lives?"

Dipper stiffened next to her. His hand shot up and clutched her arm, and when she looked at him she knew something was Wrong.

"We have to go," Torako said. She shoved the paper into her pocket and looked at Colette. "Please, please tell me who the commissioner is."

Colette stood. They looked at them, unease on their face for the first time, and said. "Okay. They said their name is Meung-soo."

Torako's breath caught in her throat. Dipper's claws—they were claws now, not fingernails, they needed to leave—dug into her skin hard enough to bruise, close to breaking the skin if they got any sharper. Her voice came through thin and high. "Ellig?"

"Yes. You know?"

Torako looked at Dipper, whose face was getting unnaturally ashen. "I…we need to go," she said, weakly. "Can we…"

Colette opened the door for them. Torako pulled Dipper out, nodded to the person at the desk, and then hurried Dipper out the door. She barely got them out of the crowd, to an area very few people were, when Dipper tugged her close enough to hurt. There was a lurching sensation, like falling down and being pulled up all at once, and they were suddenly in the cool, wide expanse of a desert somewhere.

Dipper clutched at her, fully demon now. "He's gone, he's gone, Torkao he's gone, I can't feel him, Torako—"

Torako's heart seized in her throat along with her breath. "Dipper, what's going on, what's happening?"

He fell to his knees in the sand. Torako dropped with him.

His claws pressed into her skin, through her skin, and she winced. "Dipper, what happened, what do you mean he's gone, he can't be gone—"

"He's not _there anymore, Torako_!" Dipper's voice rose unexpectedly into a scream, and Torako felt her head thrum with the power of it. "I can't feel him, he faded, he's _faded Torako he's faded who did this?_ "

Torako latched onto his words as soon as she was mentally capable of wrapping her head around them. "Faded, you said faded—do dead people fade, Dipper, do they usually fade?"

Dipper didn't seem to hear her. He didn't seem to notice that he was digging his claws in deeper, and Torako let out a long whine of pain. He was staring out into the nothingness around them, the sand that piled up into dunes, unmoving in the absence of wind.

"Dipper," she said. He didn't react. "Dipper! Dipper you're hurting me!"

Very slowly, Dipper looked at her. But he couldn't be looking at her because there was no focus on that gaze, dead and empty and so vast Torako felt herself teetering on the edge of it. "Did…did you take my Mizar?" he asked, quiet enough that Torako barely heard him over the thumping of her heartbeat.

She gasped. Dipper gripped her tighter, and she screamed. He floated up, dragging her with him, his hair whipping around him, shimmering golden lines zigzagging into existence on his face. Like bricks, she thought absently, her eyes wide.

"Mizar is _mine_ ," Dipper snarled, high and reedy and with the sound of shattering earth in the dip of his vowels. He yanked, and Torako gasped, one arm aching fiercely. The one he broke, years ago. Torako remembered his guilt, in a sudden rush. She also remembered who was the one to bring them back together, it was Bentley, it was Alcor's _Mizar_ and there was no Mizar here they couldn't afford this!

Torako gritted her teeth, then reached back and dug her fingers into Dipper's shoulders with enough force they ached. "I _would never_ hurt Bentley," she snarled through the pain, tears pricking at the corners of her scrunched-up eyes. She found her feet and pushed up into Dipper, nose to nose with him despite the jagged sharpness of his shark's maw, or the terrible, echoing emptiness that suffocated the air around him. "You fuckwitting dimshit, I love him a thousand times more than I love myself so _stop taking your grief out on me_!"

Dipper snarled right back in her face, looming as much as he could. So Torako did the only think she could. She reared back and smashed her forehead into his.

For a second, she could feel him lashing out reflexively in her mind. Her throat suddenly hurt, there was no sound, no sight. Pain lanced through her head, strong enough to cut the signals she was sending to her legs to hold her up and she fell. Her head throbbed, there was grit in her mouth and her body felt heavy enough that she couldn't move more than a finger. There was static in her ears. Torako felt like she was floating, except the river wasn't water it was just a whole bunch of needles being shoved everywhere.

Pressure against her forehead, then the sensation melted away, slow an iced-over pond during spring.

When she could hear again, it was Dipper's voice, wobbly and warbly, begging over and over, "Don't leave me too, Torako, please, don't leave me I can't, I can't, not ever but especially not now, not when it's me, please don't leave."

Torako blinked open her eyes. She shifted. Dipper was instantly upon her, asking what she needed, what she wanted, thank you thank you for not leaving thank you.

She gathered up some spit and then let it carry some of the sand out through the corner of her mouth. Then, she looked up, vision hazy, and said, "Water."

Dipper nodded, crying, and carefully drew one arm through the strap of her bag to access the pouch that held her food and beverage rations. She blinked, and the next thing she knew he was holding her water up to her mouth, and a bit was lying against the inside of her cheek. She tasted copper, and grit. With great effort, she swished the water around and then spit it out.

"Yes, yes, that's it," Dipper said, voice still shaking. "Do you need more?"

Torako blinked her eyes once, slow, and he tipped the water into her mouth again. They repeated the process two more times before Torako drank some of the water instead. She pushed herself to sit up, but wouldn't have made it very far without Dipper helping to prop her up.

"I'm so sorry," Dipper said. He hovered. It was awful. Torako lifted a trembling hand to press against her aching head, pain pulsing in her upper arm in time to her heartbeat. "I'm so sorry, I—I lost sight of where I was and who you were, and I can't feel him anymore—"

"Sssh," Torako said. Dipper shushed.

Torako didn't know how long it took her, eyes closed and just breathing, to feel well enough to actually talk again. Dipper hovered above her, and then behind her, and then finally settled down in the sand at her back. He twitched only when dangerous things came across them, and that was enough to have them beating a hasty retreat into the darkened landscape all around. Gradually, the pain in her head receded, the pain in her arms dulled to an insistent ache, and her body didn't feel quite so heavy, so she spoke.

"Where are we?"

Dipper startled, but didn't ask why she'd chosen those words as her first. "Sahara desert. I thought—Bentley was gone and I needed somewhere with nobody. Or almost nobody. There's a settlement a good two-hundred kilometers away."

Torako nodded. She raised the water to her lips and sipped slowly, thought over her next question very carefully.

"You said," she began, voice hoarse, "that you can't feel Bentley. That he faded."

Dipper curled up behind her, and she felt the lack of his warmth keenly in the desert cold.

"Do people usually…do they usually fade when they die?"

"Sometimes," Dipper said, voice halting. "When they bleed out. Or when they're old."

"And did you feel anything special this time?" Torako closed her eyes and swallowed. It only made her throat hurt more. "Like, pain?"

Dipper was quiet for a long, long moment. "No," he said, very softly. "I didn't."

"Can you…" Torako wet her lips. She crossed her aching arms. They didn't appear to be bleeding anymore. "Can you reach deeper? Try harder to feel him?"

The night was silent between them. Dipper relaxed back against her, and Torako did her best to suppress the instinctual spike of terror. It was done. They had to grow up and figure things out. While Dipper focused, Torako drank the water. She should probably eat something, she thought, but there wasn't anything in her that actually wanted food. There was an acrid taste at the back of her throat, and she couldn't remember quite enough to know if she'd thrown up or not. Torako wouldn't be surprised if she had, to be honest.

Dipper stiffened against her back. Torako twisted so that she could see him better, her side pressed up against the ridges of his spine. "What is it? Did you find him?"

He buried his face in his hands. Torako felt her gut curl in on itself. He hadn't said anything, she told herself. "Dipper?"

"He's there," Dipper whispered. Torako let out a shaky breath. "He's there, but it's so…it's so _faint_. I've never felt this before, Torako."

Torako reached out and pushed at Dipper's shoulder. He stiffened, resisted, but eventually went with it, turning to face her more fully. She felt like she was walking on knifepoint, but she slowly laid her hand against Dipper's cheek. "Look at me."

Dipper lifted his head and met her gaze for a split second before staring at something on her left cheek. She let it go. "Dipper, please explain. I don't understand."

He closed his eyes. "It's like…I can tell he's alive. Barely. But it's like there's layers and layers of heavy cloth between us, and I can only tell he's there if I listen really hard. Maybe like he's been thrown into another dimension, but that can't be right, it's impossible."

Torako dropped her hand to his shoulder, slow and gentle. She thought, then said, "What if he was in a pocket dimension? It's not quite the same as here, after all."

Dipper shook his head. "No, that's—that's not like this. That's more like looking through clear water; it's a little distorted, but it's close enough that it's nearly the same. This is…this is different."

The weight of it all pressed down on them, alone, in the desert under a gut-clenchingly clear sky. Torako thought about the stars, and their light, and their death, and hoped against all hope that Bentley's sudden disappearance from Dipper's mind wasn't something similar.

"What are we going to do?" Torako said, suddenly. She felt lost, helpless. "I can't travel across dimensions. Can you?"

Dipper laughed, short and choppy. "Maybe. I don't know. You think I would know. With all the shit I put up with, I should know."

Torako didn't know what to say to that. She let him go, and leaned back, her hands sinking into the sand underneath. She looked up at the stars, at the pale slice of waning moon in the sky. She wondered if any of the colonists up there from Earth were looking down at them. She wondered what they were thinking, a world away. If they had family, on Earth, if they missed them, how long it would be until they were reunited. Parents to children, cousins to cousins, aunts and uncles to—

Torako sat up so fast her head swam, and she had to hold still for a long moment.

"Torako?"

"Holy shit," Torako croaked. She shoved her hand into her pocket, hissing at the pain the quick movement caused, and curled her fingers around paper. It crinkled, satisfying against her fingers, and Torako's chest tightened in excitement.

Then it tightened in anger, as she remembered exactly what the paper held. Why she had it. What it meant for her, for Bentley.

"Torako, what is it?"

"You might not have noticed, maybe," Torako said. She passed the paper to Dipper, and he looked at it before recognition dawned.

"Isn't this Bentley's Aunt's place? In Germany? Why do you…"

Dipper trailed off. He stared at the piece of paper in his hand. Sand began to float in the air, piece by piece, and Torako had to reach out slowly to rescue their evidence before he incinerated it.

"I am going to _rip_ that woman to _shreds_ ," Dipper snarled. He sunk his hands into the sand, and it glowed white-hot. "I will rend her limb from limb, I will feed her the hearts of those she loves and devour their souls in front of her, I will destroy her soul so utterly that it takes her _millennia_ to reform."

Torako was about ready to join him, but she held up a hand. "Wait," she said.

" _Why_?" Dipper turned on her, teeth bared. In the light of molten glass underneath him, the contours of his face were even eerier than usual, and Torako scrambled back a short ways before she realized what she was doing. He froze. Glass continued to burn under his hands.

With a deep breath, Torako continued. "Meung-soo told that person to let us know. She gave them her address to give _us_."

"What does Grenda have to do with this?"

Torako opened her mouth to correct Dipper on Colette's name, but decided it wasn't worth the breath. Or her throat. "Meung-soo chose to let us know. Which means she might know more. She's willing to work with us."

"She _took Bentley away_ ," Dipper hissed. Sand lit up behind him, and Torako had to blink away the afterimage it caused. "We don't work _with_ her."

"I'm not saying we forgive her," Torako said. "I'm not even saying don't punch her. But we'll see what she has to say. Before," she swallowed, then took a swig of water in the hopes it would soothe a little. "Before we decide if she gets her soul destroyed or not."

Dipper stared at her, eyes eerily bright against the shadows of his face and the black of his sclera. "Fine," he said. "But I don't know if I can control myself."

Torako looked him back in the eye. She didn't know if he could, either. She didn't know if _she_ would be able to, depending on what excused Meung-soo Ellig had for them. "You have to," she said. "Even if it's in Germany. You can't explode things. Or burn them."

He didn't blink. Torako didn't try to match him in that respect, but she kept her gaze on him until the sand stopped glowing. Instead it glinted with moonlight, now glass, sparkling heavy in the ground.

"Fine," Dipper said. "But promise me something?"

Torako nodded.

"If I lose control," he said, "don't try to stop me. Run."

Torako closed her eyes. She didn't know if she could do that either. "I'll try."

Dipper was quiet a long time, so Torako opened her eyes again and watched him for a heartbeat, two, before he nodded. Then, he extended his hand. "Okay. In exchange for this blip," he said, "you have to promise that if, at any time we interact with Meung-soo Ellig, I lose control, you leave. You get out. You don't try to save her."

"In the next 24 hours only," Torako said, eyes narrowed. "Not for all time."

"A year," Dipper said. "It has to be something bigger than a day."

"Fine, then," Torako said. "Six months. That's my last offer. I still have gummy worms."

Dipper frowned at her, but shook his hand in the air. "I accept those terms. Shake?"

Torako placed her hand in his, and in a flash of blue flames they were gone.

* * *

Dipper was tempted to tesser him and Torako outside Meung-soo's house in Erkelenz and just watch it burn down. It would have been a slow fire, of course, and Meung-soo would have been unable to leave the house. The panic would have been sweet. The revenge would have been sweeter.

He thought Torako might even let him get away with it.

But Meung-soo might have information, so Dipper tessered them _inside_ the house as to attempt giving Meung-soo the shock of her life. The anti-demon wards were torn away in the space of a second, their power no match for his concentration. He knew these kinds of wards inside and out; their weaknesses were old hat to find. In fact, he knew how to make them fail as visibly and frighteningly as _possible_ , so of course he did that.

They popped into Meung-soo's living room as the house trembled and the wards lit up with a soft scream, which dissolved into a sigh as the light stopped and ash began to fall from the walls. There was a spike of fear from the kitchen, and a small gasp, but nothing else. Dipper scowled at the lackluster reaction.

Torako patted him on the shoulder, motions fragile and stiff-jointed with residual pain. Guilt grounded him in the moment and tempered the desire to see just how much Meung-soo could take.

"Meung-soo," Torako said, voice flat. "We need to talk."

For a few seconds, there was only silence in the house. And then, from the kitchen, Dipper heard a trembling voice say, "In here."

Torako stepped around the coffee table and between two armchairs hovering in place, both glowing soft purple in slowly pulsing waves. Dipper floated over them, and pushed one over for good measure, just because he could.

They stepped into the kitchen. It was immaculate, counters shining in the soft light that flickered on with their entrance. Motion sensitive, it seemed, which meant that Meung-soo had been waiting a long while. She stared up at them, eyes riveted more on Dipper than Torako. Which on one hand, was as it should be—clearly, the most dangerous predator in the room was Dipper—but on the other hand, she wasn't paying Torako near enough attention. Her loss, Dipper thought. All the more Torako would surprise her. He grinned wide at the thought and Meung-soo paled under her immaculate makeup, nervous crackles of indigo blooming and popping in her aura.

He hovered higher so that he could lean on Torako's shoulder, and continued to smile as unnervingly as possible.

Meung-soo, surprisingly, was the one to break the silence. "I see that…it's true. Bentley's involved with the Dreambender."

Torako stiffened underneath Dipper's hand. He leaned in closer to provide comfort and also to loom as menacingly as possible. He watched the rabbit-quick pulse in Meung-soo's neck, the way she swallowed, the sweat starting to form at the curve of her slightly receding hairline. It would be so easy, he thought. It would be over so fast.

Meung-soo had information, though. Meung-soo didn't deserve _fast_. Dipper waited, hovered, and let Torako be the one to speak.

"And I see," Torako said, slightly raspy, entirely cold, "that you're involved in a kidnapping and assault."

Meung-soo pressed her lips together and looked back at Torako. "And this isn't assault?"

"Not yet," Torako said. She stepped forward and leaned on the table in the kitchen, pitching her weight forward just slightly. Dipper followed. "And it might not be, depending on what's said."

Meung-soo opened her mouth. Then she shut it, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Dipper noticed Torako's shaking legs—from anger, and exhaustion, judging by her aura—and pulled out a chair for her. He glanced down at it, and then back at her. Torako told him with her eyes that sitting in front of the Enemy was a Bad Move and Reduced her Power in the situation. He pursed his lips and tapped one toe against the back of her calf. She glowered at him, but took his advice and sat down.

He was all the power she needed, anyways.

"All right," Meung-soo said. She brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

"Where's your husband, anyways?" Torako asked. She shrugged out of her backpack with minimal caution, and Dipper watched pain spike through her aura. She showed no other sign of it, though.

"Not here," Meung-soo said. She was playing with her wedding ring, and she looked to the side, at the fridge. Dipper entertained thoughts of cramming her in it with whatever leftovers she had. "He's on a trip with a few friends. Won't be back for a few days."

"Convenient," Torako drawled. She drummed her fingers on the table, eyes hooded and unforgiving. "Like you conveniently being on a convenient business trip in the convenient vicinity of where Bentley, Alcor and I live. So convenient."

Meung-soo frowned. Her wrists were bare except for one bracelet, washed out in the light of the kitchen. "Are you going to allow me to explain myself?"

"Sure," Torako said. She leaned back and crossed her arms. She was eyeing Meung-soo's folded hands on the table. "I'd love to hear why you thought deliberately getting to know your nephew under false pretenses while simultaneously plotting his kidnapping and trauma was a good idea. Sounds like something a good Aunt would do, for sure. One that cared about her nephew, uh-huh."

Meung-soo clenched her jaw. She tilted up her chin, eyes hard. "Don't you dare insinuate that I don't care for Bentley," she said. Dipper eyed her throat. It was exposed, ripe for the taking. It would feel good, he knew, to rip her windpipe out.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Torako said. Her aura expanded around her, a cloud of repressed fury and grief and pain. Dipper was ready at any moment for her to snap and let him do whatever the hell this woman deserved. "How the _fuck_ is any of this showing you care for him?"

"Because I was getting him away from demonic influences in his life!" Meung-soo said, loudly. "Philip obviously hadn't done enough in that regard, so I had to take action!"

Torako's shoulders tightened. Dipper smiled wider in a way that was instantly recognizable as a snarl ready to be unleashed. He flapped his wings twice to call attention to himself, and Meung-soo's eyes darted to him, and then back to Torako.

"Look," Meung-soo said, softer this time. "I'd been contacted with proof that Bentley was involved in demonic practices. He's the only piece of my sister I have left. I couldn't…I couldn't let him make her mistakes."

Torako snorted. "What, she consorted with demons too?"

"No," Meung-soo said. "She married a guy who basically did, though. And her job was literally excavating in dangerous areas that were formed _because_ of the Dreambender, that are still rife with potent energy and chaotic magics. I would think the Federation's schools would teach that, at least."

"Yeah, they do," Torako said. She set her hands on her thighs and leaned forward. "Trust me, I know. We're well aware of what Alcor is capable of."

"And yet you still tempt fate by interacting with him," Meung-soo said.

"I'm here, you know," Dipper said. He stared at Meung-soo's bracelet when she moved it. There was something about it that bugged him, just a little.

"I know," Meung-soo said. She didn't maintain eye contact with him for more than a couple seconds. She took in another deep breath, and then continued. "I lost my sister. I will not lose Bentley, not to some kind of madness."

Torako clearly wanted to say something, but she bit her lip and kept it back.

"So I went in," Meung-soo said. "And like Soo-jan, Bentley was…happy. He seemed well-adjusted. He didn't seem like a person who would get involved in the wrong things."

"That's because he wasn't," Torako muttered.

Meung-soo's eyebrows raised. "I think most people would say that summoning a demon falls under 'getting involved in the wrong things'."  
"I think most people would say that getting involved with kidnapping people against their will falls under 'getting involved in the wrong things,'" Dipper said. So much for letting Torako doing all the talking.

Meung-soo stared at him with a slightly twisted expression on her face.

Dipper waved his hand. "I know, you don't want to hear it from the literal demon, blah blah blah. But think about it this way," Dipper said, leaning forward so his chin was next to Torako's forehead, wrapping his arm around her shoulders slowly, "if it's the _demon_ telling you you did something wrong, what does that tell you?"

The woman across from them only narrowed her eyes. "It tells me the demon wants something from me and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get it," she said.

"But here's the thing," Torako interrupted. She swallowed, then continued, voice still hoarse. "Even if you thought you were removing Bentley from a bad environment, then wouldn't you want him somewhere nearby? Where is he?"

Meung-soo rubbed her face, the single bracelet on her wrist sliding down to rest at the swell of her forearm. Light glinted off the engraved symbols. _A memory band_ , Dipper realized. _She wants to remember everything._

Well, Dipper thought, they'd let her do that. The most important part was her being unable to _communicate_ any of it. That kind of curse was definitely in the gummy-worm price range. He and Torako would figure it out.

"He was _supposed_ to be," Meung-soo said. She stared down at the table. "He's supposed to be in a rehab center thirty minutes from here, but he isn't. I made sure to ask them about the center when they told me about the…the fridge. I was assured that he wouldn't spend too long in there, that the trauma wouldn't be horrible."

"The trauma wouldn't be _horrible_?" Torako asked. She stood up, shaking, her hands white-knuckled fists on the tabletop. "How the _fuck_ would the trauma _not be horrible?_ "

Meung-soo stood up too. "He's my sister's _son_ ," she said, voice a little loud for the space the kitchen held. "I was in charge of designing that fridge, I made sure _everything_ about the wards, about the materials used, about all of it was as _comfortable_ as _possible_ with the current knowledge in the field! He would be disoriented leaving the fridge, but because he was unconscious entering the stasis field he would have _stayed_ unconscious, and thus limited the trauma."

"Yeah, if you call _trapped in nightmare after nightmare_ unconscious, sure! Sorry, I didn't realize that wouldn't be traumatizing as _fuck_." Some of Torako's words were squeaking off into nothing.

Meung-soo's aura began to develop yellow sunbursts of uncertainty. "What do you mean, nightmares? Even if Bentley was prone to them, the stasis should have put those on pause."

Torako stared. Dipper's eyes drifted half-shut, and he watched Meung-soo in consideration. Even if she _didn't_ know about Alû, that didn't mean he shouldn't take whatever opportunity was given him to make her life hell.

Bentley was _his_ , and this woman was complicit in taking him away from Dipper.

"Meung-soo," Torako said. She straightened her back. "Do you _know_ how the cultists got Bentley?"

Meung-soo stopped breathing for a second. Dipper wanted her to stop breathing longer, but he refrained. "What do you mean, cultists?"

They stared at each other long enough that Dipper could see Torako's opinion starting to shift.

"This doesn't change anything," Dipper said. He set his claws on the table, and thought it might make Meung-soo upset if he were just to lightly scratch the surface. Or gouge it. He wasn't picky about depth. "Meung-soo still collaborated with somebody with the intention of kidnapping Bentley."

"To bring him to a safe place," Meung-soo said, shaky. "Nobody said anything about cultists."

"The police?" Torako asked.

"They just said he was kidnapped, and asked if I wanted to speak to you."

Silence. Dipper flexed his fingers, and smiled at Meung-soo. "Sounds like there were some communication problems. Like you trusted this source without thinking that maybe, just maybe, somebody would be _lying_. I'd be interested in knowing who you spoke to. It might," Dipper set his claws into the surface of the table, slow and easy as a hot spoon into butter, "

be good for you to tell us."

Meung-soo stared at him, and her gaze tracked down his arm to her table and where his claws were sinking into it. She was silent.

After a moment, Torako sat down with a tired sigh. Dipper stopped tearing into Meung-soo's table out of spite, and looked over at her. There were bags under her eyes—she hadn't slept, yet, he realized, and she had dealt with his—his meltdown in the dessert, and she looked so exhausted.

Feeling suddenly like a small child again, Dipper pulled his claws out of the table surface and sat down on the table. But not on top of the divots, he wasn't that cowed.

"Meung-soo," Torako said, even though her throat must have been hurting like hell. "Let me tell you something. In the past few days, my partner has fallen victim to the same demon my work was tracking, and he was kidnapped on top of that, and I had to call my other partner back in a tense situation and I found out that the person responsible for my partner's kidnapping was his _aunt_ , who he was genuinely getting to know and coming to love, and my other partner had a _breakdown_ and I had to stop it. I am _tired_ , Meung-soo."

The other woman just looked down at her shaking hands. When she made no move to speak, Torako continued.

"So Meung-soo, I am done with your excuses. I am done with your explanations. I have heard them. I have taken them into account. But in the end, Dipper's right—if you had not betrayed Bentley, he would still be here. So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to ask you who you talked to. I am going to take that evidence. And you are not going to talk about us, or contact us, ever again."

Meung-soo looked up, finally. "Fine," she said. She pulled out her phone from her sweater pocket, and she navigated to her mail client before sliding it over the table. "Take what you need off there. My contact never returned any of my emails, but he did leave his name at the bottom of an earlier one. Idiot."

Torako tossed the phone to Dipper, and without looking at him, said, "Check for bugs and remove them."

"What's in it for me?" Dipper asked. He eyed Torako's bag on the floor.

"Bubble gum pop," Torako said. "Blackberry."

"Deal," Dipper said. He spun the phone between his forefinger and his thumb, but found nothing more than a couple standard bugs picked up from typical internet trawling. "Nothing there," he said, choosing to interpret 'bugs' as 'malware that's harmful to us' and getting on to his candy.

"Right," Torako said. She took the phone back and set up the transfer of emails. "Now," she said, "While that's happening. Dipper?"

Dipper pulled the lollipop out of his mouth. "Yeah?"

Torako's eyes were hard. "How would you like to earn a bag of super sour gummy turtles?"

Dipper grinned wide.

* * *

They found a decent hotel in Belgium, a few hundred kilometers from Meung-soo's house. Torako bathed, carefully, and sat down on the queen bed in the room.

"So," she said. She picked up her mug of honeyed tea and sipped at it. It did wonders for her throat, though the pain didn't cease and she didn't want to waste candy on a deal for something that would heal by itself. "One Mr. Lloyd Ramnet, apparently. Any idea where?"

"No," Dipper said, the unstable energy around him in Meung-soo's house having disappeared moments after they'd entered the hotel room. It was like he was a different person altogether. He was very carefully not looking at her, his shoulders stiff, and he was actually touching the floor with his feet. "But give me a few hours and I'll know."

Torako sighed. "You're getting a summons, aren't you."

"It's not important," Dipper said. "Just—Batoor. He can wait."

She took another sip of tea and let the statement hang in the air, waiting to see if Dipper would come to the possibility she had. But Dipper said nothing, so she spoke up.

"What if he can't, though?" Torako said. She stared at Dipper over the rim of her cup. "You know this summoner, and it seems pretty forceful for a quick call. If it's a quick call? I can't tell. You should go check it out."

Dipper shook his head. "No. Batoor only calls for homework. It's fine."

"…seriously, Dipper, I'll be fine for five, ten minutes. You can leave me alone. It's okay." Torako inhaled, and the scent of slippery elm and honey filled her nose, soft, soothing.

He shook his head again. "No," he said. He looked away, and didn't explain himself. "You should get some sleep. We've got to track this person down tomorrow. You need your rest."

Torako gestured at her tea. "I've got this entire cup left. Why don't you want to leave?"

Silence. Torako huffed, then pointedly shifted so that her body was pointing away from him. Dipper didn't even try to apologize, or interact with her beyond simply being in the room. After a few minutes, Torako noticed that the stiffness bled out of Dipper's form, but he still didn't budge. Frustrated, Torako snapped her fingers for the remote, and turned on the television.

Voices filled the room, lights washed over the furniture, and Torako sipped at her tea. At no point before she went to bed were the voices Dipper's, or her own.

* * *

The pressure fell away from him so fast Bentley lost track of time worse than he already had been. When he resurfaced from the sudden drop, everything ached. It ached louder and louder, blood rushing in his ears and the crown of his head heavy, like he hadn't slept for days. It was disorienting—he couldn't tell which way was up, or down, or right or anything except he was laying down on some bed, the sheets scratchy against his skin. Something tickled the side of his cheek, his nose, but he couldn't find the energy to even blow it out of the way.

So he lay there, wherever _there_ was (he hoped it was home, hurt with hope, but a small part of him knew it wasn't), and tried to regain his bearings. He didn't know how long he lay there, just that the heavy (too quick) breaths were too numerous to keep track of, and that the rushing in his ears slowed down so gradually he only noticed once it was a quiet whisper.

It died down enough, at least, that he was able to hear footsteps.

In a rush of panic, Bentley peeled his eyes open. Then he shut them against the blinding light, groaning. The footsteps stopped, and the fear was worse than the pain so he squinted, and that helped a little. It didn't mean he could really see, though, just that there was a blurry figure in white at the end of his bed. It was enough to make his heartrate spike again.

"Calm down," the figure said. "You're going to give yourself a heart attack, and then where would that leave me?"

If Bentley were capable of movement, he would have frozen. His breathing certainly halted at the familiarity of the voice. Bentley blinked fast, hard, instinctually hoping he would be able to see better quicker, dread sitting heavy on his chest.

"I've spent a lot of money to get you here," they said. They didn't come closer, for whatever reason. "But the rewards are greater than the risks, I think. The chance to research a living Mizar without the interference of her Alcor? Priceless."

Bentley blinked, and caught a flash of orange. He felt as though the floor fell out from under him, even though the bed was just as sturdy as it had been, his limbs just as dead against the sheets as they had been.

"I must thank you," Dr. Fantino said. The blur of orange moved, slightly. "Your slip of tongue has given me the chance of several lifetimes. It seems that Philip Farkas was good for one thing, even if it was in death."

Bentley shut his eyes, and was too tired to stop the tears.


End file.
